GWPF Newsletter: Second Wave of U.S. Shale Revolution Is Coming, Says IEA

Maine Becomes The Most Recent Blue State To Reject A Carbon Tax

In this newsletter:

1) Second Wave of U.S. Shale Revolution Is Coming, Says IEA
The Wall Street Journal, 11 April 2019 
 
2) America Set To Surpass Saudi Arabia In ‘Remarkable’ Oil Milestone
CNN, 8 March 2019 

 
3) Maine Becomes The Most Recent Blue State To Reject A Carbon Tax
Patrick Gleason, Forbes, 10 March 2019 
 
4) Germany: From Leader To Loser On Climate Protection
Deutsche Welle, 8 March 2019 
 
5) Climate Scientist Nic Lewis: ‘European C02 Emissions Don’t Matter’
Edwin Timmer, De Telegraaf, 8 March 2019 
 
6) Socialist Energy Policy Triggers Venezuela’s Power System Collapse
Tim Worstall, Continental Telegraph, 9 March 2019
 
7) After Years Of Red-Green Brainwashing, Half Of Young Americans Would Rather Live In A Socialist Country
Daily Mail, 11 March 2019 

Full details:

1) Second Wave of U.S. Shale Revolution Is Coming, Says IEA
The Wall Street Journal, 11 April 2019 
Christopher Alessi

LONDON—The U.S. is on track to become a net petroleum exporter by 2021 and will soon after surpass Russia and rival Saudi Arabia, currently the world’s largest oil exporter, the International Energy Agency said Monday.

The U.S. is expected to double its gross crude oil exports to 4.2 million barrels a day by 2024, while total exports of crude and refined products should reach 9 million barrels a day, the IEA said in its annual five-year oil outlook report.

U.S. crude production, driven by relentless growth in shale oil, is expected to account for 70% of the total increase in global production capacity over the next five years, the agency added. The report also said the U.S. should account for 75% of the expansion in liquefied natural gas trade.

“The second wave of the U.S. shale revolution is coming,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. “This will shake up international oil and gas trade flows, with profound implications for the geopolitics of energy.”

The use of hydraulic fracturing in the U.S. to drill for oil in shale rock, a process known as fracking, has dramatically reshaped the global oil industry over the past decade. It has allowed the U.S. to rival traditional producers like Russia and Saudi Arabia—the de facto head of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries—for market share.

Shale was largely behind the glut of American oil that flooded the market more than four years ago, leading oil prices to fall to $30 a barrel from more than a $100 a barrel in late 2014.

U.S. shale production in 2018 grew faster than it did during the boom years of 2011 to 2014, the IEA said last year.

The U.S. last year surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest producer of crude oil, with output currently hovering around 12 million barrels a day.

Full story
2) America Set To Surpass Saudi Arabia In ‘Remarkable’ Oil Milestone
CNN, 8 March 2019 

Move over, Saudi Arabia. America is about to steal the kingdom’s energy exporting crown.

The United States will surpass Saudi Arabia later this year in exports of oil, natural gas liquids and petroleum products, like gasoline, according to energy research firm Rystad Energy.That milestone, driven by the transformative shale boom, would make the United States the world’s leading exporter of oil and liquids.

That has never happened since Saudi Arabia began selling oil overseas in the 1950s, Rystad said in a report Thursday.”It’s nothing short of remarkable,” said Ryan Fitzmaurice, energy strategist at Rabobank. “Ten years ago, no one thought it could happen.”

Next year, the US will export more energy than it imports. That hasn’t happened since 1953The expected breakthrough reflects how technology has reshaped the global energy landscape. Drilling innovations have opened up huge swaths of oil and natural gas resources that had been trapped in shale oilfields in Texas, North Dakota and elsewhere.Led by shale, US oil production has more than doubled over the past decade to all-time highs. The United States now pumps more oil than any other country, including Russia and Saudi Arabia.”

The shale boom has driven incredible increases in production,” said Fitzmaurice. “US production is off the charts.”With ample supply at home, Congress in 2015 lifted the 40-year oil export ban. Overseas oil sales have exploded since then. And the US Gulf Coast is racing to build facilities that can handle surging foreign demand for US crude.”

Full story
 
3) Maine Becomes The Most Recent Blue State To Reject A Carbon Tax
Patrick Gleason, Forbes, 10 March 2019 

AUGUSTA, Maine — The beginning of March brings bad news for carbon tax supporters, who have been successful in getting legislation to impose the regressive tax introduced at the federal and state levels, but not in getting it enacted, not even in left-leaning, Democratic-run states that should be most inclined to welcome this policy.



A February 28 Maine House Committee on Energy Utilities and Technology hearing on legislation that would impose the nation’s first statewide carbon tax ended with Representative Deane Rykerson (D-Kittery), the legislator sponsoring the bill, announcing that he will pull his proposal and will instead push for a “Carbon Pricing Study Group” that will explore the topic and issue recommendations at a later date. The committee subsequently voted on March 7 against reporting Rykerson's carbon tax bill out of committee.

In the hours-long hearing on Representative Rykerson’s bill, 60 Maine residents testified in opposition to the proposed carbon tax, explaining the harm that the regressive tax would do to Maine families and employers. Only one person testified in favor of the bill. This strong display of public opposition to a carbon tax was instrumental in killing the bill in committee.

By reacting early to raise awareness about the destructive carbon tax that was being proposed and exposing the corrupt kickbacks and special interests it was going to be paying for, we were able to gather men and women of all ages from every corner of the state to march on the capital and send a clear message to lawmakers that the people of Maine stand united against new and useless taxes the would have crushed both Maine's economy as well as our middle and low income families,” says Waterville Mayor Nick Isgro, explaining how opponents of the carbon tax managed to come out victorious despite every branch of state government being under Democratic control.
Because there is “gridlock at the federal level,” writes Governing Magazine’s Elizabeth Daigneau, “activists are focusing their attention on states and cities where action on climate change seems more likely.”

Though green activists are taking their proposals for new taxes and regulations to the state level, they have been unable to get a carbon tax enacted, even in state legislatures where progressives hold the most sway. Maine becomes the most recent blue state to reject a carbon tax. Legislation to impose a carbon tax has also been introduced in Vermont, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Oregon, and other states, but all have declined to implement one. Americans for Tax Reform has put together a timeline of all the carbon tax proposals that have been rejected both in the U.S. and abroad. 

Full post 
 
4) Germany: From Leader To Loser On Climate Protection
Deutsche Welle, 8 March 2019 

Germany was long a leader on climate protection, but in recent years has slipped in its efforts to combat carbon emissions. These days, the government is finding it tough to even unite on a climate protection law.

When it comes to climate protection, politicians from Germany's governing coalition parties — Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and their sister party, the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), along with the Social Democrats (SPD) — have lately been in a tizzy. Just recently, Minister of the Environment Svenja Schulze (SPD) presented a first draft of a climate protection act to be adopted by September, or so hoped those involved. And already there is trouble.

"We stand for climate protection, but we want to make it reasonable," said CDU parliamentary party leader Ralph Brinkhaus. "We have to do this together with the people in this country and not from above through prohibitions and regulations."

Merkel's own party dragging feet on climate initiatives

What happened? Schulze's proposal provides for all relevant government agencies to put forward their own ideas on how to achieve a whopping 55 percent reduction in greenhouse gases in their respective sectors by 2030 — in a legally binding way. To date, each successive German government has simply promised an across-the-board reduction in emissions.

Though that method worked fairly well as a motivator for many years, that's no longer the case. The goal of reducing greenhouse gases by 40 percent by 2020 won't be reached. Now, sectors that have so far contributed little to climate protection in Germany, such as transport, are being called on to deliver. But German Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) fears overly strict conditions for motorists and industry. And many of his fellow party MPs are with him.

A rapid slide down the priority list

Twelve years ago, at the beginning of Angela Merkel's (CDU) chancellorship, things were different. Germany organized the G7 summit in Heiligendamm; climate protection was the most important topic.

"If you look at the development of greenhouse gas emissions, ten years ago, Germany was actually a pioneer in climate protection and the world's ‘one-eyed blind man,'" said Christoph Bals, climate expert for the Germanwatch environmental group.

These days, no one speaks in terms of there being a leader in reducing emissions, which have either stagnated in recent years or even slightly increased.

Full story
 
5) Climate Scientist Nic Lewis: ‘European C02 Emissions Don’t Matter’
Edwin Timmer, De Telegraaf, 8 March 2019 

To tackle global climate change it is far more important that fast-growing developing countries do more than any well-intentioned steps in the Netherlands. “In fact, European emissions don’t matter,” says British climate scientist Nic Lewis.

“What really matters is: what happens in developing countries such as China, India, Indonesia, Brazil and Nigeria”, says Lewis, who gave a presentation at De Groene Rekenkamer Foundation this week in Amsterdam. According to him, it is much more important that developing countries quickly become richer and how rising CO2 emissions that this entails can be limited.

“We have a lot of knowledge and expertise in Europe. We can spend our money better than investing billions in subsidies and other climate policies that have virtually no effect on global emissions.”

Lewis would prefer to see investments in the development of clean nuclear energy or techniques to get CO2 out of the air and shut down coal-fired plants. “That could then be rolled out over the rest of the world.”

The sense of urgency that politicians and environmental organizations are promoting is unnecessary, says Lewis. Like the UN’s climate panel, the scientist assumes that global warming since 1850 is largely due to human CO2 emissions. Yet he is more optimistic than the IPCC. Based on his own research [and that of others] he concludes that the climate is much less sensitive to greenhouse gases than models predict.

“If you look at the observations since 1850, the global temperature has been rising less quickly than expected.” While the IPCC models estimate around 3 degrees of warming as a result of the doubling of CO2, Lewis actually sees only an increase of around 1.7 degrees Celsius. Climate modellers are not happy with Lewis’ criticism. “They attach less importance to what the global temperature has actually been doing.”

Lewis has a reassuring message: “It suggests that we have more time to achieve the political goal of limiting warming to two degrees. Our emissions do not have to go to virtually zero by 2050.” That is the thinking in Brussels, The Hague and the UN climate agreement.

Politicians who continue to argue for haste suffer from a Messiah complex. “They care more about their own virtue at the expense of the population.” Realism about climate change will only return to the public debate once it is clear what the actual costs are, Lewis expects. “So far, governments have tried to hide those costs. But the population is not that crazy and the penny is starting to drop.”

Translation GWPF

Full story (in Dutch)
 
6) Socialist Energy Policy Triggers Venezuela’s Power System Collapse
Tim Worstall, Continental Telegraph, 9 March 2019

The entirety of Venezuela’s ruling class is standing around with “Who, me?” looks on their faces as the country is plunged into darkness, the power system and the grid entirely fail to deliver electricity at all. The point being that yes, it’s you. The Bolivarian socialists have caused this. This is not the result of some attack by foreign capitalist pig dogs, is not some random occurrence that can strike anyone. It’s a direct result of their own previous economic policies.

They froze prices, d’ye see? That made electricity incredibly cheap, sure it did. That price was frozen, inflation took off up into the upper stratosphere, the real price of electricity falls to some tiny fraction of the cost of production. What happens then? Well, as there’s no money in the electricity generation or distribution system then no money gets spent on the electricity generation or distribution system. No maintenance, no upgrading. All this at the same time as a price of spit increases demand for that electricity.

For those first couple of pages in every economics textbook are in fact correct. Those supply and demand curves do describe reality. The reality that Bolivarian socialism is so desperate to deny the existence of:
Venezuela was almost entirely without power on Friday night amid a blackout that the Maduro government blamed on sabotage and which wrought chaos across much of the country. Communications went down, water pumps failed and transport ground to a halt as Venezuela was plunged into darkness at around 5pm local time (9pm UK) on Thursday night. The power cut was believed to have hit up to 23 of the country’s 24 states, though with mobile networks and internet largely out of action, the situation in some areas was unclear.

So, why did this happen?

All sounds reasonable enough but the real, underlying, cause is explained here: In the 2000s, after Hugo Chávez came into office, investment in new electric capacity in Venezuela dried up, particularly after he nationalized the grid in 2007. But demand for power kept soaring after the government froze electricity rates in 2002 and began subsidizing consumption. More and more people bought air conditioners, TVs, and so on. Today, Venezuela’s per capita rate of electricity use is one of the highest in Latin America.

And that’s it really. It’s necessary to charge enough for electricity to pay to keep the lights on. Don’t charge that much then you’ve not got the money to keep the lights on. Thus, ineluctably, they go out.

And just for any who still think that Venezuela has something that even approximates to an economic policy, a reminder. Price systems have a purpose. They balance supply and demand–they are not just inventions of those who would deprive the workers of their rightful. And any economy which doesn’t use the price system to allocate resources will fail, just as the Bolivarian economy there in Venezuela is failing. We can have socialism, sure we can, we can have social democracy, we can have capitalism even, but what we can’t have is the duo of an economy that functions and the absence of markets and prices.
We’ve much the same being said in painful detail here:

In Chavista Venezuela it is not just running water that is no longer available, but electricity too. Inadequate investment and a lack of maintenance has collapsed the electricity grid, plunging much of the country into darkness for prolonged periods of time. Electricity used to be partially privately-owned, part state-owned, but in 2007 former President Hugo Chavez expropriated the assets of the largest private power producer, Electricidad de Caracas. Chavez merged all electric companies into one big state monopoly, the Corporación Eléctrica Nacional (CORPOELEC).

Power cuts due to underinvestment and poor management began in 2009 and have increased in both frequency and severity over time. In 2016 public sector employees were put on a three day week in order to preserve power. While $50 billion was supposedly invested in the sector in recent years, there is little to show for it aside from 130 houses worth €72 million in Spain recently confiscated by Spanish police from Venezuela’s Deputy Minister of Energy and Mines. Such corruption, also in the form of power stations paid for but never built, clearly contributed to the failure of the system. Of Venezuela’s installed electricity capacity, 50% of the system does not work and 75% of the infrastructure is obsolete. The electricity grid is hopelessly inadequate and completely unable to meet demand.

Key turbines have been allowed to deteriorate and some power installations have actually exploded due to lack of maintenance.

Prices matter that is.

Congratulations to Bolivarian socialism therefore.

Full post
 
7) After Years Of Red-Green Brainwashing, Half Of Young Americans Would Rather Live In A Socialist Country
Daily Mail, 11 March 2019 

Socialism isn't a dirty word, as far as young Americans are concerned, according to a new survey. Half (49.6 percent) of Millennials and Generation Z said they would prefer living in a socialist country, compared to 37.2 percent of all U.S. adults who feel the same way.

Nearly three-quarters (73.2 percent) of people age 38 and younger believe the government should provide universal health care, according to a Harris Poll of 2,035 adults conducted for Axios.

By comparison, 66.7 percent of all American adults want universal health care.

A majority (67.1 percent) of young people also want the government to provide tuition-free college, while just 56.2 percent of all U.S. adults feel that way.

This graph compares how people age 38 and younger feel on key socialist issues, compared to all Americans overall. Source: Harris Poll/Axios

Young people were also more likely to support abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (43.1 percent compared to 29.7 percent of all Americans).

Full story

The London-based Global Warming Policy Forum is a world leading think tank on global warming policy issues. The GWPF newsletter is prepared by Director Dr Benny Peiser - for more information, please visit the website at www.thegwpf.com.