By Paul Driessen
...Right now, 82% of all US energy and 87% of world energy comes from
oil, natural gas and coal. Less than 3% is non-hydroelectric renewable
energy – and globally half of that is traditional biomass: wood, grass
and animal dung that cause millions of respiratory infections and deaths
every year. Thankfully, the transition to fossil fuels and electricity
continues apace, replacing biomass and lifting billions out of abject
poverty, with small solar and wind units serving basic needs until electricity grids arrive.
In
the USA, hydraulic fracturing has taken petroleum production to its
highest level since 1972, and oil imports to their lowest level since
1995. America now exports crude oil, natural gas and refined products.
The
fracking genie cannot be put back in the bottle. In fact, it is being
adopted all over the world, opening new shale oil and gas fields,
prolonging the life of conventional fields, leaving less energy in the
ground, and giving the world another century or more of abundant,
reliable, affordable petroleum. That’s plenty of time to develop new
energy technologies that actually work without mandates and enormous
subsidies.
So much for the “peak oil” scare. Indeed, in some ways, the world’s current problem is too much oil.
...Amid this turmoil, as if to ensure more petroleum industry
bankruptcies, President Obama wants to slap a $10.25 tax on every barrel
of produced oil, and use the revenues to bolster his climate change and
renewable energy agenda. Under her presidency, says Hillary Clinton, a
ban on oil, gas and coal production from federal lands would be a “done deal” and the United States would have “at least 50% clean or carbon-free energy by 2050.”
Such
policies would kill millions of jobs, torpedo the manufacturing
renaissance, eliminate the assumed revenues by strangling the oil
production that generates them, impact croplands and wildlife habitats,
and prolong America’s economic doldrums...
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