McCain responds to HA on energy
posted at 7:12 pm on April 25, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
Share on Facebook | printer-friendly
Not everyone can get their questions asked in a 30-minute conference call, and today John McCain ran out of time before he got to me. He answered plenty of questions, including from my friend Hugh Hewitt, who went unheralded in my earlier post for his brilliant and incisive question about whether Barack Obama should have to account for his relationships with William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. (McCain says he should apologize for equating a distinguished doctor and Senator like Tom Coburn to unrepentant domestic terrorists and explain how Obama can assert that the pair represent “mainstream” politics, in Chicago or anywhere else.)
McCain’s team always asks to send them any unasked questions, and they respond quickly. I forwarded them two questions and received answers a few hours later:
1. In talking about a gas-tax holiday, he mentioned that it doesn’t really address the fundamentals of high gas prices. Would he be willing to expand domestic oil production (drilling), expedite the building of new refineries, and eliminate the state mixture structures in favor of a single national mixture to make production and supply more efficient and less costly?
There is much we can do to increase our own oil production in ways that protect the environment using advanced technologies, including those that use and bury carbon dioxide, to recover the oil below the wells we have already drilled, and tap oil, natural gas, and shale economically with minimal environmental impact. John McCain would consider further natural resource development on public lands. Each potential opportunity must be studied carefully, incorporate local input, be consistent with the applicable land use plans for the area and meet appropriate environmental protection standards. John McCain believes in the multiple-use, sustained-yield approach to public land management, while ensuring that we fully protect the character of unique and sensitive areas. Natural resource development projects must be conducted responsibly and in accord with appropriate standards and public input.
John McCain also believes that there are some outer continental shelf areas that can and should be developed for their energy potential but the areas should not be those that are ecologically sensitive to such development. John McCain also believes that the will of the people of coastal states like Florida and California on issues related to OCS development off their shorelines must be respected and they should have a say in where moratoria are kept in place as well as the terms of such development that is permitted. Where OCS development is conducted, as permitted by federal and state authorities, it should be undertaken in accordance with stringent environmental protection standards, oversight, and enforcement.
2. The push for ethanol has substantially raised food prices and contributed to hunger around the world. What is the Senator’s position on ethanol?
As for his position on ethanol, I would refer you to this November 2007 John McCain speech.
The speech should be read in full, but here’s the core of his philosophy:
There is no economic force on this globe that is stronger than free people. Entrepreneurs lie at the heart of innovation, growth, and advancing prosperity. Entrepreneurs should not be shackled by excessive regulation that raises the cost of business. Entrepreneurs should not be disadvantaged by earmarking and pork-barrel spending that favors politically connected competitors.
I trust Americans, I trust markets and I oppose subsidies. As President, I’ll propose a national energy strategy that will amount to a declaration of independence from the risk bred by our reliance on petro-dictators and our vulnerability to the troubled politics of the lands they rule. That strategy won’t be another grab bag of handouts to this or that industry and a full employment act for lobbyists.
Yes, that means no ethanol subsidies. But it also means no rifle-shot tax breaks for big oil. It means no line items for hydrogen, no mandates for other renewable fuels, and no big-government debacles like the Dakotas Synfuels plant. It means ethanol entrepreneurs get a level playing field to make their case — and earn their profits.
It’s an essentially agnostic point of view on ethanol itself, but it’s the proper conservative response. If ethanol can succeed in a level marketplace, then it should continue. If not — and there are plenty of reasons to suspect it won’t — then McCain doesn’t want the government intervening to keep it afloat.
It’s a pretty good response, and it signals that our energy policy will be driven by pragmatism rather than pie-in-the-sky interventionism.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Comment pages: « Previous 1 2
GOOD ONE!!!!No,,, Make that: A GREAT ONE!
As Homer would say: “It’s funny because it is true.”
LegendHasIt on April 25, 2008 at 10:45 PM
Less than a year ago they were blaming it on sheep and bovine.
allrsn on April 25, 2008 at 10:45 PM
“It’s too soon to tell”, but that’s not stopping us from telling damn it.
Fear. Fear is the mind killer…
The Tmes has to CYA. When a real ecological event does happen, they have to make sure they’ve covered all their bases…
Wait for the 2012 wackos to come on board in about a year or so.
catmman on April 25, 2008 at 10:47 PM
This is one ignorant article!
A far more important (and prevalent) greenhouse gas is water vapor – it is a hundred times more important than CO2. Yet find one article about it!
Like all these AGW articles, this one is pure leftwing hysterical crapola.
TexasJew on April 25, 2008 at 10:49 PM
That was a U.N. intergovernmental climate change report, right? The same one that said that, actually man was not the worst producer of methane, it was flatulating livestock?
Is this the same U.N. that is now panicking about food riots caused by using food for fuel?
Knock me over with a feather.
Buy Danish on April 25, 2008 at 10:49 PM
Do you know, have they done a story about threat of armpit farts yet?
Buy Danish on April 25, 2008 at 10:53 PM
Carbon dioxide sequestration is idiotic. As is the whole global-warming-we’re-all-gonna-die (or just get sweaty) movement. The only candidate who didn’t leap to throw up a hand when the nasty schoolmarm asked if they believed in AGW was Fred!, which only confirmed my preference for his candidacy.
Unfortunately not many voters in GOP primaries shared my opinion, so I’m left with what I’ve got. Yeah, McCain’s answer is quite nuanced. It’s frustrating to see somebody who is a genuine patriot and who cares about our national security have two blind spots on the issue (border control and domestic energy production).
But this election it’s down to McCain or (probably) Obama. Obama’s worse.
And I have faith that we will have another cold winter with record snowfalls to make the global warming fanatics look silly, or even sillier than they already do.
McCain has long been an advocate of nuclear energy production. He brought it up in several debates and likes to talk about how the Navy has used nuclear power on ships for 40 years without a major mishap, etc.
funky chicken on April 25, 2008 at 10:57 PM
Dude.
Your an armpit fart for posting that video link…
catmman on April 25, 2008 at 10:58 PM
Cold winters only embolden them.
Al Gore was silent, SILENT, (except for one appearance in December) from about October through just a few weeks ago.
When the weather warms up, they come back out.
They’re like roaches when the lights go out in a kitchen.
catmman on April 25, 2008 at 11:00 PM
The answer to the first question sounds like a tacit endorsement of the current regulatory environment, which is precisely the problem. What we need is bold leadership to cut out regulatory obstacles to develop our energy resources here at home in the name of national security and the answer given sounded nothing like that.
CP on April 25, 2008 at 11:02 PM
I thought it was appropriate. It pretty much sums up what I think of this whole debate without venturing into obscene gestures.
Buy Danish on April 25, 2008 at 11:02 PM
Cold winters only embolden them.
Al Gore was silent, SILENT, (except for one appearance in December) from about October through just a few weeks ago.
When the weather warms up, they come back out.
They’re like roaches when the lights go out in a kitchen.
catmman on April 25, 2008 at 11:00 PM
Perhaps Manbearpig hibernates in the Winter and early Spring..
TexasJew on April 25, 2008 at 11:06 PM
Great science there, NYT…… NOT
Actually, burning fossil fuels ‘destroys’ methane, not produces it. Methane is essentially the same as fossil fuels. (In fact, the most recent advances in ‘deep’ geology and petroleum science indicate that most of our oil comes not from dissolved dinosaurs and other ‘fossils’ but by methane being produced in the earths outer core and mantle, being cooked and pressured’ into becoming oil.)
When methane burns, you are left, essentially, with water and carbon dioxide, Both of which, trees and plants love to ‘eat’… and in return they give us oxygen.
Hey for all of the NYTwits out there, how about some real science…. Figure out a realistic, economic way to harvest and distribute that nasty old swamp gas; Let us greedy gringos burn it to provide stuff that plants and trees like, which in turn gives us other stuff we like.
Nice little symbiotic relationship. Nice little equilibrium designed into the system huh???
Nah… That’s too much trouble. Better to just make laws based on pseudo-science. They only make things worse, but at least Al Gore and John McCain will be happy.
LegendHasIt on April 25, 2008 at 11:06 PM
funky chicken on April 25, 2008 at 11:07 PM
More cold winters then! I hadn’t even considered the short term benefit LOL.
funky chicken on April 25, 2008 at 11:10 PM
LOL
Manbearpig.
I forgot about that one.
catmman on April 25, 2008 at 11:17 PM
Oops 11:07 is a McCain quote, got it from an AGW site that hits him for not going far enough to recognize the deadly threat of AGW or whatever.
http://climateprogress.org/2008/03/20/mccains-non-straight-talk-on-nuclear-power/
Their main criticism:
So, nuclear power isn’t worth doing because we don’t use lots of electric cars yet. And because we import uranium (vast majority?). But if reducing greenhouse gasses is your top priority, wouldn’t you be thrilled with getting rid of coal fired electricity generation?
If the AGW hysteria can be used to get the weirdos to back off on nuclear power, it’s worth humoring them a little bit. And if they persist in fighting against nuke power and wind farms off Nantucket, well, they get easier and easier to mock.
funky chicken on April 25, 2008 at 11:18 PM
Heh. Colorado and Wyoming just had an amazing snow season…cold, cold, cold. Just in time for another silly article to get published. FWIW, I’ve been arguing AGW with my family members for years. What brought them around? Skiing this last winter. Epic conditions, awesome snowpack, cold as hell. Hey, whatever it takes.
Good grief, how embarrassing. Really, in a few years scientists are going to be making fun of these guys just like we used to make fun of the cold fusion fraudsters when I was in the lab.
funky chicken on April 25, 2008 at 11:25 PM
As far as importing uranium… The US has the largest known reserves of uranium (Some places have richer deposits, but few as vast as ours), and our production was the most efficient.
Three reasons that the US has been importing import uranium: Lawyers, environmentalists and NIMBYS….
Funny… The same reasons we have to import so much of our oil.
Isn’t it curious how that all works out?
What say you John McCain?
LegendHasIt on April 25, 2008 at 11:33 PM
We’ve parsed the first sentence of Mac’s response. Here’s the second:
In other words, after decades of careful study, the answer will be NO.
Buy Danish on April 25, 2008 at 11:33 PM
Yeah, Funky, … but it got very warm in Brazil at the same time.. ‘Proving’ that Global Warming is ‘Real and an immediate threat’.
Where we see the earth in general equilibrium, as it should be, with the good old Sun causing an occasional, semi-cyclical blip, ManBearPig and Juan McQueeg see cause for alarm and a chance to destroy economies while gaining riches and power for themselves, blaming it all on people who just want to live a comfortable and civilized life.
I wonder if McCain has any money in the Carbon Credit business scam, like ALGore, or if he is merely a GW dupe. I hope he is making money off of it… I’d hate to think he is taking tha position because he is stupid.
LegendHasIt on April 25, 2008 at 11:45 PM
I wonder if McCain has any money in the Carbon Credit business scam, like ALGore, or if he is merely a GW dupe. I hope he is making money off of it… I’d hate to think he is taking tha position because he is stupid.
LegendHasIt on April 25, 2008 at 11:45 PM
Believe it! The only money this dumbass ever made is from his wife.
He’s too dumb to be corrupt, which he seems to think would make a good campaign slogan.
How about this as a bumper sticker:
Too stupid to be a crook!
McCain ‘08
TexasJew on April 26, 2008 at 12:00 AM
But TJ.. As I have said many times before, He doesn’t get any ‘real’ money from his wife. Jim Hensley’s lawyers make sure of that.
LegendHasIt on April 26, 2008 at 12:13 AM
Gotta love the MDS stinkin’ up the place here. It’s like reading Kos once you get to the comments. I stg, there is nothing he could do that would please some of you; even if he did exactly what you want, you’d call it “fake.” LOL.
bamapachyderm on April 26, 2008 at 12:18 AM
I’ll admit it. I suffer from MDS. I have for 33 years…
Yes, indeed; my history with McCain dates back to the days when we were both still in uniform, when I was told by people I trusted my life to; people in a position to know: “Never trust that damned Admiral’s Son”:.
But “stinkin’ up the place”????
That stench you smell is just the light of truth exposing the rotten core of your guy.
LegendHasIt on April 26, 2008 at 12:27 AM
Gotta love the MDS stinkin’ up the place here. It’s like reading Kos once you get to the comments. I stg, there is nothing he could do that would please some of you; even if he did exactly what you want, you’d call it “fake.” LOL.
bamapachyderm on April 26, 2008 at 12:18 AM
But I’m voting for him!
Doesn’t that level of pathetic party loyalty count for anything in this crazy old world?
Beside, I never called him “fake”. Stupid as a rat turd, yes, but never “fake”!
He’s the “Maverick”, after all. How could such an esteemed leader who calls himself “Maverick” be anything but an exemplar of good judgement and wisdom?
And moreover, if McCain did EXACTLY what I wish he’d do, there’d be one SUREFIRE way to prove that it wasn’t “fake”.
It’s called an “autopsy”.
TexasJew on April 26, 2008 at 12:38 AM
The guy is a war hero, but those 5 years in the Hanoi Hilton has significantly affected him. He is insane. That is why he has the bad temper. Some day he will really go off the deep end. You can tell he keeps it all bottled up by his smiling at things that really piss him off. Denial.
No, I’m not a psychiatrist, just common sense.
cjs1943 on April 26, 2008 at 12:45 AM
It’s in the first quote in the post, moratoria is plural for moratorium.
And yes, McCain was talking out his hiney, just as you noted.
Maquis on April 26, 2008 at 1:35 AM
In the vein of previous slight off-topic diversions:
A new article on the NON global warming NON crisis:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/04/nasa_measures_global_temperatu.html
LegendHasIt on April 26, 2008 at 2:42 AM
I stumbled across this today. I had to post it somewhere, it almost fits here…
It takes around 400 pounds of corn to make 25 gallons of ethanol
…that explains a lot.
29Victor on April 26, 2008 at 5:35 AM
Missed this before:
So the article is more on-topic than I thought.
29Victor on April 26, 2008 at 5:40 AM
Your comment prompted me to ask, “what happens to the by products of ethanol production?” This led to the discovery of two articles which seem worthy of note.
The first is a very technical analysis of the energy balance of ethanol production; energy required to produce a gallon of ethanol excluding byproducts . This article re-enforced my understanding of why an attempt at ‘managed economies’ always fail; too many variables, and too many very complex interactions between those variables.
The second was ‘way down at the bottom of some very interesting comments at economists.com concerning Friedrich Hayek’s conclusion that “prices contain information“.
My search for what happens to the byproducts is yet unresolved beyond a vague statement that those byproducts ‘can be’ used for animal feed.
rockhauler on April 26, 2008 at 7:29 AM
Well, McCain is going to be our candidate.
I will vote for him, like millions of other conservatives.
He is going to have a heck of a time with a hugely Democrat Congress and Senate. They will block every conservative thing that he says he will do. In effect, he will get nothing done conservatively, but will only succeed in getting some minor “window dressing” compromises.
I wish him luck on his “wish list” of promises to the conservative movement. I don’t think that he really believes it himself. In effect, we’re set adrift in a rather cynical political game. John McCain just wants to win the election and he has no loyalty to his own Party.
Against all odds, and with a distinct minority of the votes cast, he clinched the nomination. McCain does not forget nor forgive any of his political opponents. In that way, he is the complete opposite of President Bush, who forgave his far too easily, even while they were busily trashing him.
Therefore, the only thing we can do is to work for our representatives and senatorial choices. That’s why I think that the RNC and McCain should be ignored in local matters such as the NC ad issue. They have their agenda, and we have ours. President Bush spent very little time building up the Republican Party; it was a useful vehicle for him, and it was allowed to wither during his two terms in office. Can you even name the current chairman of the RNC? Can most Republicans?
There’s been a slow hemorrhage of power from the Republicans over to the Democrats over the last seven years.
The sad situation we face now was set with the 2006 elections, but it is an inevitability stemming from the problems that we have had over the past decade.
I guess (to use Rev. Wright’s tedious analogy) those chickens, such as they are, are finally coming home to roost with a vengence.
TexasJew on April 26, 2008 at 7:31 AM
After reading through some of the comments I get the impression that people who like to talk about the market do not understand it.
I said that there was not a push to drill in ANWR back in the 90’s because prices were low..and someone tells me..that is why prices are high today…BINGO. the way the markets work is that when prices get low production goes down and then what happens? Prices go up. That is the way it works. It is all about capitol, responding to the market.
And Texas Jew, those plants put a lot more money back into the economy than they take out. Ethanol is not some new greenie invention, it has been around for decades and we need some energy diversification. If you shut those plants down the price of gas will go up and more people will be out of work in a part of the country where they can least afford it.
If you really want to cut down on energy use and the need for other energy supplies, look to the urban areas with their huge houses and golf courses and swimming pools and 24/7 life. The cars always moving, the lights always on, demanding and taking more farm ground everyday. They are the problem, not the farmer and not some biodiesel plants making fuel.
Terrye on April 26, 2008 at 7:35 AM
And besides all that, speaking of the market, if you pull that biofuel off the market, what exactly do you think the effect will be on gas prices?
Terrye on April 26, 2008 at 7:40 AM
Well Texas Jew acting as if you could care less if a lot of poor people in conservative rural America have a job or not will not help Republicans. People want a strong party that is relevant, they do not want a bunch of ideologues more interested in being right, than in doing right.
Terrye on April 26, 2008 at 7:43 AM
Well Texas Jew acting as if you could care less if a lot of poor people in conservative rural America have a job or not will not help Republicans. People want a strong party that is relevant, they do not want a bunch of ideologues more interested in being right, than in doing right.
Terrye on April 26, 2008 at 7:43 AM
Not to sound too hard-hearted, but being right about economic issues IS doing right. If one is living in communities that cannot provide employment, there are not a lot of alternatives. You have to find work. And many places in this country are booming.
I remember working in southeastern Kansas years ago – a beautiful place, but with deep ingrained rural poverty. The folks who stayed there were content with their food stamps and getting paid not to grow crops, but it was a depressing place for anyone who cared about getting somewhere in life.
People who left did very well elsewhere and returned when things improved. It was sad, to be sure, but it simply follows the historical trend of rural communities.
I’ve hopped a lot of buses myself over the years to find work, especially back in the late 70’s when the oil fields were popping up all over the place. Are you suggesting that endless taxpayer funding of ineffective and wasteful pie-in-the-sky schemes like switchgrass or wood chips plants is acceptable?
The villains in this scenario are the creeps pushing an unworkable “alternative” to our energy problems. They waste valuable assets (like food, fuel and taxpayer subsidies) while those problems only get worse and worse..
Biomass is wasteful vis-a-vis energy intake, it produces less energy than it takes in. That’s the entire bottom line. It sucks.
Imagine if Oklahoma subsidized its failing oil and gas industry in the 1980’s while prices fell on thier derriere. When all those huge deep-drilling rigs in Beckham Count, etc.y got stacked and many thousands (well over 100,000) of those rig workers and local people suddenly lost their jobs.
Should Oklahomans have paid a 50% surtax on all their gasoline or heating? Or did what actually happened produce a better, albeit not perfect result?
I’m not saying we shouldn’t help the poor folks who got caught up in this monstrous scam and who are struggling to make ends meet in our rural communities, but continuing this ethanol/biofuels nonsense is starting to actually cause real starvation and misery all over the world.
It needs to be unfunded.
TexasJew on April 26, 2008 at 8:23 AM
There’s gotta be a few in here – that’s the only thing that can explain their whole-hearted shilling for this sh*t sandwich.
Redhead Infidel on April 26, 2008 at 8:45 AM
Give me a damn break, not everyone was in love with the Mittster you know. But at least he had some class and love for the party, unlike most of his acolytes.
Squid Shark on April 26, 2008 at 8:47 AM
You’ve jumped to a very wrong conclusion.
Redhead Infidel on April 26, 2008 at 8:57 AM
OK not everyone was in love with the other poop sandwiches in the race.
F**k It, McCain 08
Squid Shark on April 26, 2008 at 9:15 AM
Beyond that, how much energy was used to produce the 400 pounds of corn to make 25 ethanol gallons? Only the Jimmy Carter brand of idiot (GWB included with Gore, and now Gingrich to boot) would jump on the ethanol bandwagon, anyway.
1. DRILL!
2. NUCLEAR
3. SOLAR
Wind, ocean, whatever…but not FOOD converted to lunatic power.
These world leaders who all endorsed ethanol are not as stupid as they’d have us believe–they’d like to do away with the world’s excess population of poor and indigent humans. It’s their blood sacrifice OF OTHERS TO PROMOTE THEMSELVES at the alter of modern science. There’s an ugly alignment with the Biblical Cain and Able story, especially as Able honored God with his agricultural efforts, and Cain envied God’s love for Able’s production, so he killed Able to take it all for himself–as if God’s love was part of the plunder. Moral of the story, beward God’s curse. At least quit starving the starving in the name of “progress” or science.
maverick muse on April 26, 2008 at 9:44 AM
I REALLY like his answer on ethanol. And, that is coming from a conservative who isn’t voting for McCain, so much as against Obama. The questions really need to be more specific to get more specific answers. For example:
1) Do you support drilling in ANWR?
2) Do you support building new oil refineries in the US?
3) Do you support off-shore drilling?
4) Do you support building nuclear power plants?
5) Do you support getting the states to agree on a national gasoline standard?
You do these things and the price of gasoline will go way down. The economy will receive quite a bump and the McCain presidency will look like it knows what it’s doing.
joncoltonis on April 26, 2008 at 9:56 AM
Terrye on April 26, 2008 at 7:35 AM
You are what Rush calls a “jewel of colossal ignorance”.
That is demonstrably FALSE. We have been trying to drill in ANWR since the Carter Administration, and there was a huge push during the Clinton Administration and again during the Bush Administration, but the special interests and Senate Dems stopped it every time (with a little help from tools like McCain).
Somehow I doubt you have as much compassion for oil workers or employees of other such evil corporations. Moreover, why is it that since we’ve been using ethanol the cost of gas has skyrocketed and not gone down?
You sound just like a good Communist comrade, Terrye. You demonize “huge houses and golf courses and swimming pools” (which are found in suburban, not urban areas, but I digress).
Apparently green spaces are good as long as they are taxpayer funded but if they privately owned then they are bad. These golf courses provide lots of jobs, add beauty to our surroundings, and this is the part that must kill you – provides a pleasurable pastime which is against Marxist rules that dictate that nothing short of a 100% misery index is acceptable.
However, what is jaw-droppingly idiotic is your complaint about what you call a 24/7 life. Do tell – what schedule do you and your commissars want us to operate on? All lights turned off by Big Brother at midnight? What’s your glorious plan for the greater good?
Buy Danish on April 26, 2008 at 9:58 AM
The answer to this is a solid yes, he has been pushing for Nuke power for a very long time and it has always been a core energy strategy.
Squid Shark on April 26, 2008 at 9:59 AM
The answer to this is a solid yes, he has been pushing for Nuke power for a very long time and it has always been a core energy strategy.
Squid Shark on April 26, 2008 at 9:59 AM
How will that get your car on the road? I mean, unless it’s a little golf cart?
Well, that means that in about 15 years we’ll have a bit more electricity that is not coal-based and will be lots more expensive. great.
We DON’T NEED nuclear power plants. WE ARE THE SAUDI ARABIA OF COAL! Nuclear power, quite honestly, is just a red herring. Coal is under attack, oil is skyrocketing and McCain was a critical vote against ANWR. We have an underutilized pipeline in Alaska that needs another 1.5-2 million barrels of oil per day – almost a third of our domestic oil production. That would be from ANWR – which Mccain doesn’t want us to get to. Ever.
Lieberman would stop liking him, I suppose.
If all the nuclear plants in the country were shut down tomorrow, we would be able to be up to the same electricity levels in 3-4 years, max. If all the coal-fired plants were shut down (which the Left wants to do), it would take decades for nuclear plants to take up the slack.
Talking about nuclear without mentioning our main source of energy – cheap coal – is just a suckup to the environmentalists.
And that CO2 sequestration is a 200% tax on cheap coal, if it even works, which several tests I know of indicate that it won’t. The huge Ekofisk sequestration project, by the way, in the North Sea is a disaster, according to the petroleum reservoir engineers at Statoil I know who actually work on it. The overpressured gas is breaching its shale seals – the beginnings of a total, possibly cataclysmic failure.
McCain is just the veritable Mozart of mealy-mouthing political crapola.
As Wanda Landowska was to the harpsichord, or Vladimir Horowitz was to the piano, McCain is to the pandering MSM buttkiss.
TexasJew on April 26, 2008 at 10:20 AM
So you want unsustainable coal instead of sustainable nuke power?
Sounds good.
Squid Shark on April 26, 2008 at 10:29 AM
Electric cars can have just as much pickup as any average sedan. Powered by a nuke power grid..I can get onboard.
Squid Shark on April 26, 2008 at 10:30 AM
I never said shut down coal plants and neither did McCain.
Squid Shark on April 26, 2008 at 10:32 AM
400 # of corn is 7 bu. 1 acre of corn will provide enough ethanol to drive a car for 72,000 miles.
Ethanol is respon. for maybe 25 to 33% of food price increase—-the other 75% is from China, India etc demand, Transportation of food and increased middleman cuts (ie Gen Mills, kraft etc)
Both food and grain prices have been stagnent for 25 years
http://www.ethanolfacts.com/ETHL2007/downloads/foodcornprices0407.pdf
How many other segments of the economy have lived with the same price level on sales for 25 years……….and gave 6 billion back to the Fed govt in unused program monies last year…………NONE
Ethanol facts is a easy google………..
Dont let MSM’s pit another segment of the nation (Farm country = Red state country)……..do the research
sbark on April 26, 2008 at 10:39 AM
Maybe you can find out if McCain has finally watched the NC GOP ad he has been slamming.
Valiant on April 26, 2008 at 10:44 AM
I’m completely unimpressed.
As long as McCain concedes the false premise that “CO2 is a pollutant,” he has unleashed the government to tax and regulate every human activity including the very act of breathing.
landlines on April 26, 2008 at 11:11 AM
I think some people need to pull their heads out…
I sick and frickin tired of hearing – “core energy strategy”, “sound energy proposals”, blah, blah, blah.
Asking what anyone “supports” is also irrelevant.
I support the Dallas Cowboys winning the Super Bowl, But “supporting” it ain’t gonna do jack shit to make it actually happen.
He should be asked , “What would you DO for XYZ…”
Nail him down on SPECIFICS, not “proposals”, “policies”, or “strategies”.
When you ask about SPECIFICS, you get the kind of BS answer in the first part of this post. Read that shit again will ya!
Does McCain support nuclear power? Of course he does, but what the hell will he actually do to get some? “I will support core strategies to implement broad based energy policices based on sound judgement. I will ensure multi-disciplinary input from all concerned parties to investigate possible and probable means in which to increase national energy production by shattering current political and economic paradigms…”
Do I need to go on with this shit?
Pardon my french, but I think I just wrote exactly what McCain’s current “policies” and strategies are!
And it’s all bullshinola!
catmman on April 26, 2008 at 11:17 AM
Bingo.
Buy Danish on April 26, 2008 at 11:24 AM
Sbark, I’m not trying to refute your examples, I’m trying to learn something here, and what I’m finding tells me this is not a simple problem.
What I find unsettling is McCain’s declaration to end ethanol subsidies that were just recently enacted. It is
this sudden reversal of government policy that is objectionable. If those subsidies were not a necessary part of US energy policy, why did congress enact them? (Duh! epiphany!)
Iowa Ag Review fall 2006.
Where will the ‘new corn acreage’ come from? Visit Northern Illinois around Chicago. What was farm land 40 years ago, is now shopping malls and parking lots. This is true all over the US, and the ag crops produced by that land, has to be grown somewhere else; i.e. western states, where water is scarce and expensive. Water used to produce corn/ethanol is not available to grow vegetables.
What becomes apparent is the scale and complexity of this problem and it will not be solved by government edict. In fact governmental involvement creates other problems which surprisingly require more government involvement.
If you see a contradiction here, you are correct. I am for government subsidies for food production, because I want food readily available, and cheap (in surplus). I am not in favor of government subsidies for ethanol production because government interference in the market place introduces distortions in that market place. Will government subsidies product ethanol in quantities sufficient to reduce retail gasoline prices? We don’t know yet. What other unintended consequences will we discover? We don’t know yet.
Yet we have government subsidies for ethanol production. Ok! Fine! Let’s live with this for a while and see how it works.
The article in Iowa Ag Review documents the boom in ethanol/corn production. This means employment and increased economic activity.
I am not in favor of yet another sudden reversal in government intervention in the market place.
rockhauler on April 26, 2008 at 11:40 AM
For Iowans. Meanwhile the rest of us are paying inflated food prices, and not seeing any reduction in the cost of energy. If Iowa was not the first state in the primaries I betcha we would not be in this mess.
Buy Danish on April 26, 2008 at 12:39 PM
Yes, I agree.
You have hit a point I had considered appending, and chose to discard. That is politicians who use the power of government to selectively reward party loyalists, and selectively punish their opponents.
Is this program in the national interest?
Has this program had any effect (yet)? It’s that problem of scale.
rockhauler on April 26, 2008 at 1:37 PM
Folks, all I can say is get your heart and mind where it needs to be, on issues that matter to you and eternity. This place is sinking fast, partly proven by the inability of our once proud party to send up a decent, hard-thinking, conservative nominee. We are treading water, and no amount of dismay will turn back the clock. There’s no political or cultural turnaround coming… American hearts have darkened and our minds are dull, we can’t even vote straight.
leftnomore on April 26, 2008 at 3:47 PM
But McCain’s not conservative enough for you, right?
funky chicken on April 26, 2008 at 4:38 PM
But McCain’s not conservative enough for you, right?
funky chicken on April 26, 2008 at 4:38 PM
rockhauler on April 26, 2008 at 5:59 PM
A couple of things come to mind after reading comments.
An Athabascan tribal leader in the community of Fort Yukon, Alaska, just above the Artic Circle, told me they are against drilling there. I am for it, so I bit my tongue during my visit last summer.
I often wonder why in every media strip of our interstates leading to major cities there is not an automated elevated monorail system. I see ever more lanes being added but not monorail. We have the park and ride parking area and free right of ways but few simple, uncomplicated monorail systems; Disney has them but not our cities. And why is this? Well the cost may be the problem. A highway expansion of one lane is in the order of $750 k per mile (http://www.dot.state.fl.us/estimates/LaneMileCosts/LaneMilecosts.htm)
and a monorail system can be as high as $141.9 million per mile as in Vegas (http://www.lightrailnow.org/facts/fa_monorail004.htm). Even Disney cost $1 million per mile in 1982. Still I hate to see the highway right of ways not being used as we see more and more traffic tie ups, accidents with their human costs and pollution from our private vehicles. I love my vehicles but I did enjoy riding the BART into San Francisco many years ago reading my paper and remembering the old exhausting traffic runs during my earlier 50 mile drive.
amr on April 26, 2008 at 6:31 PM
.
Well I think the conventional theory is that it was decaying plant biomass that led to the formation of petroleum, not ‘dinosaurs’, and certainly not fossils, which by definition are not dissolved.
Be that as it may, I am interested in your iteration of the idea that petroleum is produced deep in the Earth’s mantle. This was a theory propounded by Thomas Gold of Cornell University, and never verified, though I believe there was an attempt made in one of the North Countries to drill very deep wells in search of the hypothetical source of new oil being formed; it was not successful.
There was also a report a couple-two-three years ago of new oil refilling some of the tapped-out locations in the Gulf of Mexico. My recollection is that the possibility that it was just infiltration from other, nearby pools, was never ruled out.
Obviously if the standard explanation for the origin of petroleum were wrong, and Gold’s were right, it would be a boon to humanity, as we would never run out (unless we used oil faster than it was being made). I’d be interested to hear if there is any new evidence in favor of Gold’s theory.
MrLynn on April 26, 2008 at 7:18 PM
MONORAILS?
DID I JUST READ SOMEONE ADVOCATE FOR F’ING MONORAILS?!!!
Public transportation, though useful in some areas, especially high population zones, are more or less a boondoggle too!
The cost benefit ratio for most cities with public transport at best breaks even – if your lucky.
And it doesn’t matter what the public transport vehicles are fueld with – diesel, gas, LPG, whatever.
Seeing buses drive around twon either empty or with one or two peolple always cracked me up.
And don’t give me that “they’re for the poor”, “underprivileged”, or any of that victimology crap either.
Most of those people could save their money, buy a frickin bycycle, and be better off.
Monorails. Everyplace where they could or would be even slightly ebeneficial already has some form of lite rail, subway, etc.
You may have enjoyed riding the BART, but it cotinues to be a giant boondoggle.
This is one reason we don’t have cheap gas – people are more worried about spouting off every little feel good solution, we aren’t doing what is really needed:
Build more nuclear plants
Drill for more of our own oil
Build more damn refineries so the oil we do have can get made into gas
Stop wasting so much government money on nebulous solar, wind, wave, etc. projects.
If we had spent all (or at least most) of the money we’ve wasted on solar and wind (and ethanol?) we’d be swimming in refineries, gasoline,
and plenty of energy from nuclear.
You were kidding about monorails.
Right?
catmman on April 26, 2008 at 7:45 PM
Uhm. Color me skeptical.
How do these not-terrible answers square with the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Bill, which comes at an enormous cost, when the Earth has STOPPED WARMING? Maybe ask him about this proposed piece of crap next time.
That bill scares me about as much as his determination to give amnesty to 12-20+ million criminals. And his determination to restrict political speech.
MCCAIN ‘08: HE’S ONLY A LEFTIST IDIOT ON A FEW ISSUES!
misterpeasea on April 26, 2008 at 8:19 PM
I actually know nothing of Professor? Gold. I first heard of it in either 1979 or 1980 when an acquaintance of mine used it as the basis of his doctoral dissertation.(One of the universities I attended had a pretty good petroleum engineering program.)
The little I have heard of it lately, and I couldn’t provide any links, is that more and more evidence points to it. Especially from explorations of deep sea beds and trenches, and underwater volcanic vents.
Kind of hard to prove it by drilling a 6 inch wide hole here and there on the surface.
LegendHasIt on April 26, 2008 at 8:41 PM
Gold’s theories have been somewhat discredited over the past 25 years.
There are almost always chlorophyll breakdown products in crude oil (from the main biotic source of oil, green algae), and the C isotope ratios are consistent with local shale source rocks.
Bobby Hefner up in OKC was the big proponent of Gold’s theories, along with Ken Ellison and he went broke several times drilling the deepest wells ever attempted (30,000′+) for gas which he thought was “outgassing” from the earth’s mantle.
There are some of these hydrocarbons from deep sources, no doubt, but modern petroleum geochemistry points to a very small trace amount being from deep nonbiotic sources.
I’m a geologist and have had extensive graduate training in petroleum engineering from UT/Austin and am a member of the SPE. I probably know this guy you mentioned with the PE dissertation.
i wish Gold’s thesis was true. It would be wonderful to revitalize old plugged-out fields. I have done that, but haven’t seen much replenishing. They usually are right at the point they were left at..
TexasJew on April 27, 2008 at 12:51 AM
So you want unsustainable coal instead of sustainable nuke power?
Sounds good.
Squid Shark on April 26, 2008 at 10:29 AM
What the f**k is “sustainable? I hear that meaningless word from the Left. It means precisely zip. The Lewft never knows crap about energy. They are severely retarded on most fronts, but on energy they are both stupid and psychotic, all at the same time.
US coal reserves are massive and almost bottomless. That’s truly sustainable and real.
Coal is the only real solution we have. Yet the Left (McCain’s buddies) want it shut down. By advocating CO2 sequestration, McCain is just sticking the knife into coal. And that is national suicide.
TexasJew on April 27, 2008 at 1:03 AM
TJ, wouldn’t fast-breeder reactors be a good long-term solution for electric power, and ’sustainable’?
Solar satellites that beam power back to Earth via microwave would be ’sustainable’, too. That that won’t happen until we have a cheap way of getting to geosynchronic orbit.
Of course, the left thinks of ’sustainable’ as ‘free’, which nothing is. Unfortunately, the left has been dictating our energy policy, or lack of one, for 40 years now.
If John McCain had any sense, he’d get out in front of this issue, denounce the left, and come up with a program to ensure energy security in this country, come what may. That’s a big ‘if’.
I agree that in the short term (next 30-50 years) coal is our best bet, by far.
MrLynn on April 27, 2008 at 7:17 AM
Way to go McCain!!
I couldn’t agree more. My only problem with McCain is in the next breath he will talk about the need for the government to stop global warming. One must wonder what steps he intends to take if not with energy subsidies for the purpose of lowering CO2 emissions. I am left wondering if he really does buy into the hoax that mankind’s CO2 emissions poses a global warming threat.
Dollayo on April 27, 2008 at 7:31 AM
This article proves that we’re going to love McCain 80% of the time and hate him the rest. Good answer John!
Hugh Hewitt is the man.
Mojave Mark on April 27, 2008 at 11:30 AM
TJ, wouldn’t fast-breeder reactors be a good long-term solution for electric power, and ’sustainable’?
Solar satellites that beam power back to Earth via microwave would be ’sustainable’, too. That that won’t happen until we have a cheap way of getting to geosynchronic orbit.
I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with nuclear. I like nuclear. I remember defending nuclear way back in the 70’s down in Austin and getting my head handed to me by the leftos. It was then (mid- late-70’s) that this country ran away from nuclear, and we were only saved by cheap coal, which went from 20% of our electrical output to over 50% now.
Remember, we don’t have an electric generation problem; we have a transportation fuel problem. As far as electrical generation, this country should have less problems than any other nation in the world.
As far as solar satellites, what I am concerned about would be quite simply the effect of huge streams of highly concentrated powerful superheated microwave energy through our planet’s ozone layer and upper troposphere. If simple UV causes ozonolysis (as explained to me in my first Organic Chemistry class), can you imagine what would happen with huge streams of microwaves?
Again, what is the damn point of that method of supplying energy, exactly? You’d have to convert it into electricity via some kind of turbine, steam system or some other tranformer system, I imagine, and any conversion would be a certain fraction of the initial energy. In other words, you would lose quite a bit of the energy pushed through our atmosphere. It sounds like something that would rinag the envir’s wackiest alarm bells, in any case: “we’re burning our oxygen! Save the children!!” No-go there, I’d bet.
As far as CO2 sequestration and ignoring coal to go nuclear,
you’d have to approve of the entire left’s fear of a trace gas like CO2 and their propaganda to come up with all these super-expensive way-down-the-line, often-cockamammie schemes to solve a problem that isn’t even really a problem, in any case.
I don’t get it. Just find a way to drive your damn 3000-pound car from one state to another using transportation fuels instead of coming up with unnecessary solutions to non-problems.
Stop playing the left’s game of changing the conversation..
Oil’s $120/barrel – build uneconomical wind turbines, we’re importing too much oil – let’s stick useless solar panels on our roof and make taxpayers pay for it.
These are non-sequitors – non-solutions to a rather serious problem. In other words, pure horseshit.
This combination of shell-game solutions and brain-dead thinking is making experienced oil folks like me pretty damn rich these days, but it is neither right, nor good for our country..
TexasJew on April 27, 2008 at 12:17 PM
. . . Stop playing the left’s game of changing the conversation..
Oil’s $120/barrel – build uneconomical wind turbines, we’re importing too much oil – let’s stick useless solar panels on our roof and make taxpayers pay for it.
These are non-sequitors – non-solutions to a rather serious problem. In other words, pure horseshit. . .
TexasJew on April 27, 2008 at 12:17 PM
Couldn’t agree more. CO2 sequestration is idiotic, and ‘free’ (i.e. subsidized) solar/wind power won’t solve our transportation problems. The problem the right has is that the left has conflated several problems into one: oil shortages, energy independence, AGW, etc., producing the non-sequitors you deride.
Re CO2 sequestration, I keep thinking about that lakeside village in Africa a few years ago where everyone suddenly turned up dead. The only cause anyone could come up with was a buildup if CO2 in lake sediments. The lake burped, and blanked the village with CO2, suffocating everyone.
MrLynn on April 27, 2008 at 11:14 PM
Catmman:
Settle down.
I did put in the exorbitant cost of monorail systems, so I wasn’t ignoring it. But I used to construct/test nuclear/coal/gas fired power plants, so I DO know what happens when such things are constructed. BART was a first of a kind and my employer built it. It was in a high cost of land area and partly underground; not totally above ground with a small foot print with existing parking available in an owned right of way. And yes it would be more expensive than adding another highway lane as I showed. Even at Disney it was $1 million per mile. But on most highways we are running out of lane expansion room and the overpasses would have to be extensively modified to widen the roads much more. And as with nukes, there is NO standardized design (beyond the reactor and safety systems).
When I worked for the CA community college system analyzing the cost of building the ever expanding system in the 1970s, they saved money by having a small number of standard designs owned by the state with the foundation having to be designed according to the local land properties. In my county school system they were designing each public school from the ground up; such a waste of money. But, as I tried to do, you can’t change that concept when everyone seems to want their own pretty school different from the other. And that is exactly what utilities and regions have wanted, be they nukes, monorails or light rails. In the past decade utilities have started to realize that they can save a lot of money by purchasing standardized units, but that has taken a long time to occur. And AE’s have been slow to offer standardized units. That’s not the American way.
And I do berate frequently, via letters and E-mails, my president and congress for not having a drilling in now off limit areas/energy policy and developing TDP and switchgrass waste to ethanol dump face facilities. While public transportation (or have private industry build and run it) does not fulfill every need but commuting back and forth to work when you have a set schedule is one where clean mass transit has its place. I doubt if NY, London or other large cities could survive without their subway and feeder systems and I wouldn’t want to foot the bill to build one today; paying for BART was enough. But sometimes there is little choice but to do what needs to be done, rather than what you would rather do. The days of driving in unfettered traffic into the city at 8 AM are gone, unfortunately.
amr on April 28, 2008 at 8:36 AM
If McCain favors drilling for shale oil, this could open up a huge source of domestic energy. There was already news a few weeks ago of the discovery of a source of about 4 billion barrels of shale oil under North Dakota, and there are signs of a much larger shale-oil source under an area of the Rocky Mountains in northwestern Colorado, southern Wyoming, and southeastern Utah. Shale oil is more costly to extract than conventional oil (about $60/barrel), but with foreign oil at $120/barrel, oil companies could make money on it, which will encourage them to extract it.
Even if only a small fraction of our electricity comes from oil, extensive development of nuclear power would help the overall energy situation. A large fraction of our electricity comes from natural gas, which burns cleaner than other fossil fuels. If some electricity production could be displaced from natural gas to nuclear power, this would lower the demand for natural gas, and lower its PRICE relative to fuel oil for home heating. This could persuade homeowners to switch from fuel-oil to natural gas for heating, thereby lowering the demand for oil. If there were less demand for fuel oil for home heating, refiners would tend to run catalytic-cracking units harder, which are used to convert heavy oil into gasoline, whose demand has not slackened despite high prices.
McCain is right about eliminating ethanol subsidies, even if that doesn’t please corn farmers. The energy required to run tractors to plant and harvest corn, and to convert corn to ethanol is almost as much as the energy obtained by burning ethanol, so it’s much more efficient to at least obtain the FOOD energy from corn, than to convert corn to ethanol.
So far, we haven’t heard anything about the elephant in the energy room–COAL! We’ve got enough coal under American soil to supply America’s electricity needs for 400 years–shouldn’t we use it? True, coal emits more CO2 than other fuels, but CO2 isn’t really a pollutant, and today’s clean-coal technology can obtain energy from coal with relatively low emissions of real pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and particulates. Yes, we do need environmental controls on coal plants, but the technology exists here in America, while the Chinese are building lots of inefficient, dirty coal plants right now! So the choice is–do we build clean-coal plants here, and save our natural gas for other uses, or do we fight “global-warming” and let the Chinese corner the energy market?
What say the Senators who are now running for President?
Steve Z on April 28, 2008 at 11:18 AM
Of course he’s not going to be handing out subsidies to energy groups. He’s going to be running us broke from trying to prevent all natural disasters (like hurricanes) from ever killing another American, regardless of the costs…
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/261165.php
Once you stop Hurricanes (and obviously, all causes of accidental death more likely than hurricanes) from killing Americans, we’re not going to have enough money to get paper and pencil to write the word “subsidy”.
Or maybe he has no idea what he was talking about… again. But at least he’s good on spending. you know, except for promising the moon and stars to New Orleans; giving no regard to any possible costs.
Aside from that, he’s pretty good. So he’ll only spend us further into debt on these issues, and not others.
Yep, I feel better now.
gekkobear on April 28, 2008 at 1:45 PM
ugh… will this ever end.
When do we put a bounty on tree humping, sprout eating, keen wearing, tofurkey making, pot smoking, liberal arts majors?
Not sure about all of you guys, but when diesel hit 4.15 a gallon here, it made me wonder how much stock Gore had bought of Exxon and BP.
upinak on April 28, 2008 at 4:39 PM
Comment pages: « Previous 1 2