America needs more oil, and we just found plenty. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) recently published its “Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal: Estimates of Undiscovered Oil and Gas North of the Arctic Circle,” and this first-ever assessment of the entire Arctic region estimates are that it contains 134 billion barrels of oil and other liquid fuels. And we don’t have to wait for Russia or other Arctic nations to start drilling, as Alaska turns out to be the single most promising part of the region, with offshore and onshore resources of …
Tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is an energy solution for politicians who are not serious about real energy solutions, but H.R 6578 seeks to do just that. Entitled The Consumer Energy Supply Act – in case you hadn’t noticed, truth in advertising laws don’t apply to the names of energy bills – the bill would tap 70 million barrels of oil from the 700 million SPR in an attempt to flood the market and bring prices down. It would add it back at a later time. This is bad …
A picture is worth a thousand words – or in this case ten billion barrels. A group of ten House Republicans just did something few ecotourists have ever done – they visited Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and saw first-hand the 2,000 or so acres of the 19.6 million acre refuge believed to lie on top of America’s single largest untapped source of oil. Anti-drilling activists have characterized this area as an environmental jewel, but the pictures of this expedition show a bleak, flat, nearly treeless expanse of no …
Though still facing an uphill fight in the current Congress, the recently introduced American Energy Act is an important bill because it keeps up the pressure for sensible steps to bring down high energy prices. Regardless of its chances for success in 2008, this bill’s pro-energy provisions – opening up some of the vast energy-rich offshore and onshore regions that are off-limits and removing other federal impediments to more domestic supplies – are important for the long-term. In fact, the environmental activists can teach their pro-energy counterparts a thing or …
Of all the overblown predictions of a future global warming apocalypse in the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Analyses of the Effects of Global Change on Human Health and Welfare and Human Systems,” the one the agency should be most ashamed of is its claim that warming will exacerbate ozone, otherwise known as smog. The others, like increased hurricane and flood damage, are also at odds with the actual trends and scientific evidence. But smog is within the agency’s expertise, and it knows full well its assertions are misleading. The claim that …
Hundreds of pages of bureaucratic micromanaging of the economy, all in the name of fighting global warming, make up the Environental Protection Agency’s Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR). Many of the agency’s ideas for reducing energy use and resultant greenhouse gas emissions seem unreasonable, to put it mildly. However, the effort to redesign ships is in a class by itself. EPA states that “innovative strategies for reducing hull friction include coatings with textures similar to marine animals and reducing water/hull contact by enveloping the hull with small air bubbles released from …
At the G8 Summit in Japan, there was much talk about global warming, and considerable self-congratulation over the agreement among member nations to reduce greenhouse gas emission by 50% by 2050. There were also predictable cries from environmentalists that this target was not sufficiently stringent or legally binding. But negotiations about future targets miss the point. Rather than setting new goals, member nations should be looking at whether current goals are being met, and if not, whether a different approach is warranted. Under the Kyoto Protocol, the multilateral treaty that …
The laundry list of excuses not to expand access to American oil was never convincing even when gas was $2.00 and gets less so as the price at the pump continues to rise. But the latest round of reasons is downright irrational, with some directly contradicting others. Here’s a rundown of some of the silliness: There’s No Oil Out There, And We’ll Have Massive Spills Of It The “drop in the bucket” brigade still argues that opening up ANWR or the 85 percent of our territorial waters that are currently …
The proposed global warming bill, the America’s Climate Security Act (S. 3036), would cost trillions of dollars and impose significant job losses and energy price increases, according to an analysis by the Heritage Foundation. But is it worth it in terms of global warming damage prevented? Not even close. Even if one assumes the worst of global warming, this bill would hardly make a dent in the earth’s future temperature. According to Pat Michaels, climatologist and senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute, the impact would be minimal. …
