Friday, March 18, 2016

U.S. Crude Oil Exports Explode While Americans Turn Anti-Nuclear Power

by JASmius



Or, take your pick - "putting OPEC out of business", or "de-glutting the U.S. domestic oil market and bringing jobs back to America" - regardless, I think every non-greenstremist should be able to see that this is a very, very good thing.

And remember, it was brought you by the congressional Republicans who will be unemployed a year from now after the Trump ebbtide washes conservatism into the political wilderness for good:

Three months since the U.S. lifted a forty-year ban on oil exports, American crude is flowing to virtually every corner of the market and reshaping the world’s energy map.

Overseas sales, which started on December 31st with a small cargo aboard the Theo T tanker, have been picking up speed. Oil companies including Exxon Mobil Corp and China Petroleum and Chemical Corp have joined independent traders such as Vitol Group BV and Trafigura Ltd Pet. in exporting American crude.

The "growing volumes of exports" from the U.S. are now "spooking the markets," Amrita Sen, chief oil analyst at consultants Energy Aspects Ltd. in London, said in a note. The "flurry of export activity" is helping to support spot oil prices in the U.S. relative to contracts for later delivery, she wrote.

With American stockpiles at unprecedented levels, oil tankers laden with U.S. crude have docked in, or are heading to, countries including France, Germany, the Netherlands, Israel, [Red] China and Panama. Oil traders said other destinations are likely, just as supplies in Europe and the Mediterranean region are also increasing. [emphasis added]

Those destinations are interesting for the geostrategic importance of some of them.  By restoring our country as a player in the global energy market with our largest proven supplies of petroleum and natural gas on the planet, we can reduce the dependence of European allies on the reserves of another large oil and natural gas exporter, Putinoid Russia, and thus the latter's economic leverage over the former.  And wouldn't it be a sticky wicket for the ChiComms if we could get them dependent on us for their energy lifeline in the same way?  Which would, of course, run smack into Donald Trump's promised trade war with the Asian superpower, and highlights the need to keep those economic ties and doors open and flowing.

But I digress.  This was always going to happen at some point.  With the U.S. domestic oil market glutted and production slowing, exports are the natural slack-taker-uppers.  How is it not a good thing to compete with Saudi Arabia, Iran, the Islamic State, and non-OPEC producers like the aforementioned Russians and Mexico - right, Donald?  I think we all win, and the right parties would lose.

Which is a good thing on which we'd better stock up now, because the American people are falling back under the pagan greenstremist spell:

Global warming is becoming a more serious concern among Americans, with fears about the issue reaching near-decade highs — along with rising attitudes that climate change is being caused by human activities, a new Gallup poll indicates.

Here are the results, released Wednesday, of latest survey of 1,019 adults, taken March 2-6:

Those saying that they were worried a "great deal" or "fair amount" about global warming:

2016: 64%
2015: 55%
2014: 56%
2013: 58%
2012: 55%
2011: 51%
2010: 52%
2009: 60%
2008: 66%

Those responding that global warming is based on human activities:

2016: 65%
2015: 55%
2014: 57%
2013: 57%
2012: 53%
2011: 52%
2010: 50%
2009: 57%
2008: 58%
2007: 61%

"Americans are now expressing record — or near-record — high belief that global warming is happening, as well as concern about the issue," Gallup said in its analysis of the findings.

It's like a reverse bell curve of sanity, isn't it?  Look where the numbers were four years ago and where they are now.  And you wonder why I've been saying ever since November 6th, 2012 that that was America's last chance, and that we're past the Rubicon and doomed?

And that was before the GOP opted to commit Trumplicide, guaranteeing a Clinton restoration.

But I digress.  The disastrous trend isn't limited to fossil fuels (i.e. REAL energy):

Since 1994 Americans have been in favor of the use of nuclear energy, however, a new Gallup survey released Friday shows the majority of Americans, for the first time, oppose nuclear energy by 54% — a significant amount more than those who opposed it in 2015.

According to the Gallup Survey:

54% oppose nuclear energy, up from 43% in 2015.

44% are in favor of nuclear energy, down from 51% in 2015.

The survey notes since gasoline prices have been lower over the past year, Americans are "prioritizing environmental protection and fewer are backing nuclear power as an alternative energy source."

This is why I say, Tea Partiers, that nothing is more important than winning elections and denying as many seats and governor's mansions and especially the White House to the Democrats (and their Trojan Horses) as possible - not even (sorry, Director) Article V conventions and Republic Reviews and other grassroots endeavors that look and sound great on paper but will never go anyplace in a real world that is hurtling away from the Founding Fathers' vision like a gamma-ray burst in both the Democrat Party and the T.R.U.M.P.  The Republican Party as we, including all of you, will fondly remember it, is not made up of the "fighters" you wanted, but it is conservative, and is conservatism's home, and even at its worst served the eminently practical purpose of taking up space that the Democrats could not occupy.  Power is a heap-big megaphone for one's core message, and given the Dems' endless extremist commie-lib propagandizing, always aided, abetted, and amplified by the media, the last thing they need to be allowed is to add power to make it the "trumping" hat trick.

It all started in 2006, when what I came to refer to as "tighty-righties" decided that unified GOP government had gotten too "complacent" and "profligate" and needed to be "shaken up" <AHEM> to be "taught a lesson".  So a lot of conservatives stayed home on Election Day, and the Democrats swept to control of both the Senate and the House in what President Bush43 accurately described as a "thumpin'".  Did that "teach the GOP a lesson"?  Yes, it did - it taught the "establishment" that they couldn't rely upon the conservative grassroots, so, facing a dire 2008 cycle anyway, they moved left and nominated John "Darth Queeg" McCain.  That gave us The Age Of The One and the Donk SuperCongress of 2009-2010 that inflicted the "stimulus," ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, the nationalization of the auto industry, and all manner of other statist calamities upon the nation.  And while the Republican restoration in the House in 2010 halted that, Red Barry took the "baton" and imposed the  rest of the hard-Left "revolutionary" agenda - cap & trade, Obamnesty, etc. - by executive fiat since then.  And on whom did you blame all of that?  Congressional Republicans for not being able to "FIGHT!  FIGHT!  FIGHT!" their way to pipedream miracles.  And now some - not all, but some - of your number have quit, abandoned their all-mighty rock-ribbed principles, and have linked up arms with a breed of vermin....





....that was thought (or hoped) to be deservedly extinct, and together they're turning over the party you misperceived as insufficiently "pure" to a bizarre amalgam of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and George Wallace.  And he'll take it down with him in November, putting us right back where we started eight years ago, except that the American people will be even more committed to the wrong cause that will have at least four more years to entrench itself, fossil-fuel and nuclear power - which is to say, energy - free.

But I digress.  Exit quote from Calvin & Hobbes:

CALVIN: What do you think is the best way to get what you want? Is it better to hold fast and never back down, or to compromise?

HOBBES: I suppose it's best to hold fast when you can, and compromise when you need to.

CALVIN: That's a lot more mature than I think I care to be.

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