Below are some very interesting points made by Univ. of California Professor Eric Smith:

From 1971 to 2000, offshore facilities and pipelines were responsible for only 2 percent of the oil in U.S. waters. The bulk of it (63 percent) came from natural seepage, and 22 percent came from municipal and industrial runoff. Worldwide, natural seepage is the largest source (47 percent) of oil in water, followed by spills from ocean transportation (33 percent). In short, the risk of oil spills from platforms is small.

In contrast, there are relatively high environmental costs associated with importing oil as opposed to producing it in the United States. There are three problems with importing oil: First, spills from tankers and barges are the largest human-caused source of oil in the oceans. Oil is more likely to be spilled from a tanker than from a platform, and tankers have the potential to cause catastrophic spills. The groundings of the Exxon Valdez (off Alaska), the Castillo de Bellver (South Africa), the Amoco Cadiz (France), the Irenes Serenade (Greece) and the Torrey Canyon (Britain), to name a few, all had severe effects on local ecosystems.

Second, the countries from which we import oil have lower environmental standards than the United States has. In particular, many foreign oil producers choose to vent methane — a powerful greenhouse gas — directly into the atmosphere rather than spend extra money to capture or flare it. Mexico, for example, produces less than half the oil that the United States produces but emits six times as much methane.

Third, shipping oil to the United States requires burning a huge amount of diesel oil, the exhaust from which is greenhouse gas pumped into the atmosphere. Just as environmentalists argue that eating locally grown food is better for the planet because it saves transportation costs and energy, locally produced oil has less of a negative impact. Depending on the country of origin and the tanker size, 1 percent to 3 percent of the oil in every tanker is consumed merely for delivery.

Great commentary. But here’s one the professor didn’t mention regarding domestic off-shore drilling: right now, countries like China are drilling in those same waters which so many people deny our own companies access to. Those foreign countries, in turn, sell that oil to the very countries from whom we purchase foreign oil.

We’re not protecting our environment, but simply ensuring that we pay more for oil.

President Obama is taking the Al Gore approach to climate change — that is, “shut up, he explained.”

It’s a big problem, time is running out, be very afraid, just do what I say and don’t try to debate, or use facts, or logic, or reason, or anything other than slanted and predetermined computer models created by a minority of “consensus scientists” who rely on grant money from the very government that would ” fix the problem” for the low price of X trillion dollars or no money back! Well, in response to the president’s declaration — like Ramses waive of the hand, so it is written, so it shall be done — that global warming is an “irreversible catastrophe” please take the time to read the Heartland Institute’s top myths about the subject.

The National Aeronautic and Space Agency (NASA) has determined Mars, Pluto, Jupiter, and the largest moon of Neptune warmed at the same time the Earth recently warmed.

Two hundred million years ago, when dinosaurs walked the Earth, the average carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere was 1800 ppm, five times higher than today.

All four major global temperature-tracking outlets (Hadley UK, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, University of Alabama-Huntsville, and Remote Sensing Systems Santa Rosa) have released updated information showing in 2007 global cooling ranged from 0.65 degrees C to 0.75 degrees C, a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. This occurred in a single year.

NASA satellites measuring global temperatures found 2008 to be the coldest year since 2000 and the 14th coldest of the past 30 years.

Surface Stations Inaccurate

U.S. climate monitoring stations on the planet’s surface show less cooling, but most of the 1,221 temperature stations are located near human sources of heat (exhaust fans, air conditioning units, hot rooftops, asphalt parking lots, and so forth). The land-based temperature record is unreliable.

Although we hear much about one or another melting glacier, a recent study of 246 glaciers around the world between 1946 and 1995 indicated an overall balance between those that are losing ice, gaining ice, and remaining in equilibrium.

On May 1, 2007 National Geographic magazine reported the snows on Mt. Kilimanjaro were shrinking as a result of lower precipitation, not a warming trend.

The overall polar bear population has increased from about 5,000 in the 1960s to 25,000 today, and the only two subpopulations in decline are in areas where it has been getting colder over the past 50 years. Polar bears have survived long periods of time when the Arctic was much warmer than today. Yet alarmists say the bears cannot survive this present warming without help from government regulators.

Here’s former Greenpeace activist Bjorn Lomborg:

Research by climate economist Professor Richard Tol shows that carbon cuts big enough to keep temperature rises lower than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit)–a target that the G-8 and many others argue is necessary–could cost a staggering 12.9% of global GDP in 2100. That is the equivalent of $40 trillion a year. Available estimates show that the welfare loss induced by global warming will be just $3 trillion per year by 2100. For each dollar spent on global carbon cuts, we buy two cents worth of avoided climate damage. The solution is far more costly than the problem.

Yes, but the world’s bureaucrats aren’t interested in “solving” climate change (even if it were a problem), rather they’re interested in a new form of global taxation.

Here’s Lamar Alexander (R, TN):

By far nuclear energy is the least land-intensive; it requires only one square mile to produce one million megawatt-hours per year, enough electricity for about 90,000 homes. Geothermal energy, which taps the natural heat of the earth, requires three square miles. The most landscape-consuming are biofuels ethanol and biodiesel which require up to 500 square miles to produce the same amount of energy.

Coal, on the other hand, requires four square miles, mainly for mining and extraction. Solar thermal heating a fluid with large arrays of mirrors and using it to power a turbine takes six. Natural gas needs eight and petroleum needs 18. Wind farms require over 30 square miles.

This “sprawl” has been missing from our energy discussions. In my home state of Tennessee, we just celebrated the 75th Anniversary of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Yet there are serious proposals by energy developers to cover mountains all along the Appalachian chain, from Maine to Georgia, with 50-story wind turbines because the wind blows strongest across mountaintops.

Let’s put this into perspective: We could line 300 miles of mountaintops from Chattanooga, Tenn., to Bristol, Va., with wind turbines and still produce only one-quarter the electricity we get from one reactor on one square mile at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar Nuclear Plant.

Another problem with Waxman-Markey is that while wind power, solar, and some biomass are included hydropower and nuclear power are excluded. Hydropower is a renewable and fairly effective source of electricity— its exclusion makes no sense. The exclusion of nuclear power, while not surprising, shows how disingenuous this push for “renewable” electricity really is.

– Daren Bakst.

Here’s reason #1 of the Club for Growth’s top 15 reasons to oppose the Waxing Malarkey (Waxman-Markey) “cap and tax” bill:

National Energy Tax: This is a tax that will affect constituents in every aspect of their lives. From transportation, to food, to electricity, to income – this is the ultimate regressive consumption tax to the tune of nearly $3,000 per year according to the Heritage Foundation. The costs per family for the whole energy tax aggregated from 2012 to 2035 are estimated to be $71,493.

Read the rest.

Here’s an interesting letter to the Washington Post editor which underscores that the law of unintended consequences is generally far more relevant and far-sighted then your average unelected egghead bureaucrat who designs our CAFE laws, etc.:

The Prius’s reputation as a “green” car is completely undeserved. The culprit is its nickel metal hydride battery.

The nickel is mined in Sudbury, Ontario, and smelted nearby, doing damage to the local environment. The smelted nickel is shipped to Wales, where it is refined. Then it is sent to China to be made into nickel foam. Then it goes to Japan, where it is made into a battery. Then it goes into cars, some of which are shipped to the United States and some of which go to Europe. All of that seaborne transport consumes a lot of fossil fuel.

CNW Marketing rates cars on the combined energy needed “to plan, build, sell, drive and dispose of a vehicle from initial concept to scrappage.” A Prius costs $2.87 per lifetime mile. By comparison, an H3 Hummer costs $2.07 per lifetime mile. Then there will be the problem of disposing of the used batteries.

This is not a “green” car; it is a “brown” one.

JAMES CLIVIE GOODWIN

The argument of fuel-economy savings versus the inflated up-front cost of the new vehicles is fantasy, but the retorts bear often repetition in the face of a government attempting to slam down the consumers’ throats what type of vehicle is “good for them.” Here’s a letter in the WSJ responding to Sec. LaHood’s utopian predictions:

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s May 29 letter is wrong on many issues, including safety, but his fiscal numbers are way off base. A report submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in June 2008 by Sierra Research demonstrates Mr. LaHood’s folly. The average cost per vehicle to meet the new standards (35 miles per gallon combined for cars and trucks) will be a minimum of $3,778 per vehicle. For light trucks that number balloons to $5,877, not the $600 Mr. LaHood says. And the fuel economy number on the window sticker will not average 35 mpg, it will be 20% lower after it is adjusted by the EPA.

But, for the sake of argument, if your mileage went from 30 mpg to 40 mpg your savings will not be $2,800. The savings is 125 gallons of gasoline at 15,000 miles a year or about $300 at $2.50 a gallon. The interest cost on the extra $3,778 at 6% will be about $225 a year. So the real savings will be about $75 a year, and the $3,778 will never be recovered. After 150,000 miles of driving you will still be upside down by $3,000. For trucks and SUVs it will be worse. Most European manufacturers will be better off paying the one-time fine of $60 per mpg per vehicle for each mpg the vehicle is under the standard. It will be a lot cheaper for the manufacturer and for the consumer, who will also be buying a much better vehicle in terms of performance, utility, safety, comfort, handling and ride quality. There will be a “jalopy effect” as a result of these ridiculous regulations. Need more proof? When has the government ever saved money or been efficient? The marketplace always is.

Larry Weitzman
Rescue, Calif.

There’s a lot of talk of “energy independence” coming from the Obama administration. It’s a perennial red herring. Of it, Holman Jenkins stated earlier this week it was “a favorite of Tojo and Hitler, was debunked by Churchill, who reasoned that true energy security came from a diversity of suppliers, not the foolish pursuit of self-sufficiency.”

Even so, note the hypocrisy here, in Obama’s tax plan:

$5.3 billion – excise tax on Gulf of Mexico oil and gas
$3.4 billion – repeal expensing of tangible drilling costs
$49 million – repeal passive loss exception for working interests in oil and natural gas properties
$13 billion – repeal manufacturing tax deduction for oil and natural gas companies

In other words, in order to promote energy independence Mr. Obama is going to make it more difficult, more expensive, and thus less likely that American energy companies can drill here, drill now.

The key word above, of course, is “American” — Obama has no power whatsoever on the biggest and most powerful global oil companies, to whom we will turn to get our energy even more than before. (Those pie-in-the-sky notions of “clean” and “green” alternative energies won’t help you power your car to work — only oil and gas will). For all our demonization of the Exxons and Chevrons, et. al., they are puny players in the global market — ranked at #17 and higher in terms of global energy conglomerates, the top spots belonging to the state-owned companies in Russia, Venezuela, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, Nigeria, etc. 94% of the worlds oil is already controlled by non-US companies.

Meanwhile, Max Schultz noted that Obama’s alternative energies are simply too expensive, and no bang for the buck:

The subsidies involved are considerable. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported in early 2008 that the government subsidizes solar energy at $24.34 per megawatt-hour (MWh) and wind power at $23.37 per MWh. Yet even with decades of these massive handouts, as well as numerous state-level mandates for utilities to use green power, wind and solar energy contribute less than 1% of our nation’s electricity.

Compare the subsidies to renewables with those extended to natural gas (25 cents per MWh in subsidies), coal (44 cents), hydroelectricity (67 cents), and nuclear power ($1.59). These are the energy sources (along with oil, which undergirds transportation) that do the heavy lifting in our energy economy.

No matter. In the guise of “saving” our environment from warming that (1) isn’t a problem, and (2) is not even man-made, the Democrats are going to shove a massive $646 billion that will cost every American consumer, not just those hated “richest 2%.” They may as well tax you for every breath you exhale.

WaPost: Obama to force car manufacturers to make cars consumers don’t actually buy.