While the chattering classes yammered on about American decline and peak oil, a quite different future is taking shape. A world energy revolution is underway and it will be shaping the realities of the 21st century when the Crash of 2008 and the Great Stagnation that followed only interest historians. A new age of abundance for fossil fuels is upon us. And the center of gravity of the global energy picture is shifting from the Middle East to… North America. --Walter Russell Mead, The American Interest, 10 July 2012
For decades now, the energy-narrative of North America, particularly the United States has been one of energy scarcity. We’ve been told, repeatedly, that the U.S. has surpassed “peak oil,” and 6 years ago, people were so worried about natural gas supplies that we were talking about importing liquified natural gas from abroad. But the narrative of energy scarcity in North America is a fiction: We are not only energy-wealthy, we are energy-wealthy beyond most people’s comprehension. --Kenneth P. Green, American Enterprise Institute, 9 July 2012
The United States, Canada, and Mexico are awash in hydrocarbon resources: oil, natural gas, and coal. The total North American hydrocarbon resource base is more than four times greater than all the resources extant in the Middle East. And the United States alone is now the fastest-growing producer of oil and natural gas in the world. --Mark Mills, The Manhatten Institute, July 2012
One of the more remarkable things happening in the world at the moment is the revolution being brought about in the US energy market by cheap shale gas. In four years this has halved the cost of gas, saving US energy users an estimated $100 billion. Thanks to the growing switch from coal to less carbon-intensive gas, US “carbon emissions”, for what it’s worth, have also plummeted to their lowest level in 20 years. In Britain, thanks to the utter incompetence of those in charge of our energy policy, the opposite has happened. The rising cost of imported gas has led our electricity companies to switch back to coal, which in the past two weeks has been contributing up to 40 per cent or more of our power. More than once, however, the contribution from all our 3,500 wind turbines put together has been as little as 0.2 per cent, with coal-fired power stations contributing 200 times as much. As for that shale gas, of which we also have huge reserves, our Government seems to do all it can to discourage it. --Christopher Booker, The Sunday Telegraph, 8 July 2012
Back in March, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released a study showing our economy had 3.1 million green jobs. Recently, it issued another green jobs study with a headlining number of 854,700 green jobs. Don’t worry—the economy did not lose 2 million green jobs in three months. There were not 3.1 million green jobs to begin with. And there are not 854,700 green jobs now. --David Kreutzer, The Foundry, 9 July 2012
An El Nino will increase the global temperature a bit but that is not global warming. The 2010 ENSO did push temperatures up giving 2010 an almost record status – but by hundredths of a degree – statistically well within the noise of inter-annual variation. In summary, no two El Ninos are alike, and the case for a change in their intensity or frequency in recent years has not been proven. --David Whitehouse, The Global Warming Policy Foundation, 9 July 2012
