Bjorn Lomborg is an economist whose work I've been following for many years. Lately we've had some fascinating conversations about global health and development, which led us to write this post together.
The Global Goals are a phenomenal idea. They’re what happened when the U.N. came together and said: “Here are the world’s biggest problems, and here is how we’re going to measure progress on them.” The 17 goals include promises to end extreme poverty and hunger, fix climate change and education, and reduce inequality and corruption.
On December 5, 2022, scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) achieved something truly remarkable. After firing 192 lasers at a small pellet filled with deuterium-tritium fuel, the resulting reaction essentially created a tiny star for a few nanoseconds. Crucially, the energy created by this reaction was more than the energy put into the reaction. In other words, science had finally achieved nuclear fusion ignition.
Until that point, humans had never been able to recreate the life-giving power generated in the center of our Sun on Earth. But for the first time, the clean energy promise of nuclear fusion—arguably the greatest energy source imaginable—suddenly seemed possible. Now, fast forward only eight months, and LLNL has achieved ignition again. But this time, they had even greater results.
LLNL spokesperson Paul Rhien spoke with The Financial Times on Sunday, and said that “in an experiment conducted on July 30, we repeated ignition at NIF. Analysis of those results is underway, but we can confirm the experiment produced a higher yield than the December test.”
Maybe the question now isn’t whether we’ll ever achieve usable fusion power but whether the powers that be would allow affordable, unlimited energy. That certainly hasn’t been the case with nuclear fission in recent decades.
First they came for the cars. Then the gas stoves. Next was meat and dairy products. The latest on the chopping block? Wood-fired pizza. These types of tactics grab the headlines, but make no mistake: climate alarmism courses through the veins of the highest levels of government leaders and regulators.
As President Joe Biden would say, “I’m not joking, folks.”
Earlier this month, the world’s largest oil-producing countries agreed to significant cuts in production as a means of keeping oil prices high as the global economy faces a potential recession in the coming year. The group known as OPEC+, which includes both the OPEC countries and several other petroleum producers not formally in the global oil cartel, said it would cut production quotas by 2 million barrels per day starting in November. The decision, led by top oil exporter Saudi Arabia along with other Gulf countries, was also seen as a slap in the face to President Joe Biden, whose administration had been frantically lobbying the Saudis and other Gulf allies to maintain or increase output and allow prices to continue to fall.
President Joe Biden was outraged on October 5 when the oil-and-gas cartel OPEC+ announced that it would cut production by two million barrels of oil per day. He had reason to be angry. The dis was personal. And the move has global implications. OPEC+ includes Russia, and rising oil prices will help Vladimir Putin, undermine Europe’s ability to keep the lights on, and reduce food supply in the Global South. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and National Economic Council director Brian Deese released a joint statement slamming the decision as “shortsighted” and harmful for “lower- and middle-income countries that are already reeling from elevated energy prices.”
Yet the White House’s true worry is domestic. Here is how you can tell: Sullivan and Deese mentioned Ukraine only once in their 311-word missive. But they brought up the proverbial gas “pump” twice and U.S. “gas prices” three times. President Biden has been around long enough to understand the special relationship between fuel prices and presidential job approval. He’s incensed that OPEC+ may have helped the Republican opposition weeks before the midterm election.
Biden really ought to look in the mirror. The OPEC+ embarrassment was the latest reminder that he, not Putin nor Saudi Arabia, is the chief author of the Democratic Party’s current woes. On issue after issue, the instructions that Biden gave at the outset of his presidency have made America less prosperous, less independent, and less secure.
Energy and immigration tell the tale. Biden signed 17 executive orders on his first day in office, and two of them dealt with U.S. oil and gas production. One order pledged that America would rejoin the Paris climate accords and commit to the deal’s targeted reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. The other order blocked oil and gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, forbade drilling in large parts of Utah, and canceled the Keystone XL pipeline between the United States and Canada. One week later, Biden stopped issuing new oil and gas leases on public lands.
Biden knew what he was doing. The “clean energy transition,” as Sullivan and Deese put it, is among the top priorities of the Democratic Party. The transition involves hiking the cost of carbon-based energy to the point where renewable alternatives become affordable by comparison. You decrease supply of oil and gas until prices rise enough for the average consumer to search online for a Tesla.
Retail gas prices rose steadily between Election Day 2020 and June 2022. Midway through his first year in office, Biden’s energy-dampening regulations contributed to and interacted with the general price inflation he mistakenly assumed to be “temporary.” The president panicked. Rather than confront the green crusaders who fund his party, he opened the spigots of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) and pleaded with OPEC+, especially with America’s Persian Gulf allies, to increase production. Gas prices fell between June and September. They settled where they were earlier this year and have ticked upward since.
Biden’s strategy of dependence has run aground. The SPR has been drained to its lowest level since 1984. OPEC+ has told Biden no. The nuclear deal with Iran is in limbo as the mullahs fend off the most significant challenge to their rule in years. And a Wall Street Journal report that the administration was looking into easing sanctions on Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuela so that Chevron could increase output brought jeers from Republicans and a hurried denial from the White House.
Biden’s regulations and restrictions accomplished what he wanted: more expensive oil and gas. His problem is that voters do not want the future the climate Cassandras have in store for them.
The thing is, Greens want to make your life worse. The policies for doing so may vary, the the impact is always the same. That’s because making your life worse is the goal; the policy arguments are just the current excuse.
Biden has been president for less than two years, and look how things have changed: Gas prices, crime, war, inflation — pretty much everything has gotten worse. It’s not like there was no warning given.
Takeaways from today's report on Lake Mead and the Colorado River
From CNN's Angela Fritz
The federal government announced that the Colorado River will operate in a Tier 2 shortage condition for the first time starting in January as the West’s historic drought has taken a severe toll on Lake Mead.
What this means:
Arizona, Nevada and Mexico will have to further reduce their Colorado River use beginning in January. California will not yet have cuts made to the water it receives from the Colorado River.
Of the impacted states, Arizona will face the largest cuts — 592,000 acre-feet — or about 21% of the state’s yearly allotment of river water.
Those cuts are part of a system that Colorado River states have already agreed to in the case of an unprecedented water shortage.
But experts say those mandatory cuts are not enough to save the river.
In June, Bureau of Reclamation chief Camille Touton told the river’s stakeholders to come up with a plan to reduce up to 25% of their water usage.
She gave them an August 15 deadline, but negotiations have been difficult and are not finished. Touton did not specify on Tuesday any new deadlines that might be set for states to come up with a plan for the drastic cuts.
"Today we're starting the process and more information will follow as far as the actions we'll take in that process," Touton said on Tuesday. "I want to continue to push on the need for partnership in this space and the need for collaboration and finding a consensus solution. Not just for next year but for the future."
Some of the river’s stakeholders are eager for the federal government to step in with a plan. John Entsminger, the general manager for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, told CNN that so far not enough of the stakeholders have put forth proposals that would get the basin to Touton's target.
“There's only so much water, and mother nature will figure this out at some point," Entsminger said. "At some point, there's just not water in the river channel."
The Brent crude index, the global oil benchmark, increased to $108.07 per barrel Monday morning, surging more than 3.1% overnight. The U.S. WTI index skyrocketed more than 3.4% past $103 per barrel Monday.
“Will the release of barrels from strategic reserves fill a shortfall caused by sanctions and buyer aversion to Russian oil? In a word, no,” Stephen Brennock, an analyst at PVM Oil Associates, told Reuters.
Biden announced Thursday that he ordered the Department of Energy to release a million barrels of oil stored in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) every day for six months. The following day, the International Energy Agency said its 31 member nations pledged their own separate release of 62.7 million additional barrels of oil.
The US uses about 18 million barrels of oil each day, and every trader knows that at some point we’ll have to refill the SPR.
How is Joe Biden dealing with the high gas prices?
As we reported earlier, he ordered that there would a release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve — one million barrels a day for 180 days — to help lower the prices. This is an incredibly bad move — robbing our savings account at a time of great inflation and world instability — that does nothing to increase our long-term production. We’re only supposed to be using it in an emergency, which is not this when there are other options.
There is a major supply chain crisis in our country, and it is not going away anytime soon. But if you listen to the White House, it’s no big deal. Nothing to see here. It will all end soon.
Not so says economist, consultant and writer, Milton Ezrati.
“The supply chain issues will be around for quite awhile, I’m talking about the 2nd half of next year at the earliest.”
So what is the problem? The two biggest issues are, too much government spending, and the Biden administration shutting down oil and gas.
“That’s not a supply chain issue, that’s policy” Ezrati told KTRH.
Joe Biden sent a letter today asking the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to look into whether oil companies are illegally increasing prices resulting in the pain American consumers are feeling at the gas pump. This move is not completely unexpected. Last week I wrote about his interview with a local Cincinnati television station where Biden floated the balloon. The rise in gas prices at the pump must mean those evil oil and gas companies are price gouging, right?
As brain-dead reasoning goes from this anti-fossil fuel president, this is a beauty. Send the FTC on a wild goose chase for nefarious pricing action by energy companies instead of looking at his own actions, that’s the ticket. Instead of asking his alleged energy experts, I know, about his options in correcting the situation, he points a finger at Big Oil because it’s a favorite whipping boy of the keep-it-in-the-ground wackos.
Straight out of the Sacramento playback for explaining away California’s high taxes on gas and frequent electricity blackouts:
So angry, in fact, he ordered his Attorney General to investigate the decades-long mystery.
“There is no identifiable evidence to justify these premium prices,” Newsom wrote in a letter to state Attorney General Xavier Becerra. “If oil companies are engaging in false advertising or price fixing, then legal action should be taken to protect the public.”
Newsom correctly identified the symptom but remains clueless about the cause. He at least pretends to be.
Having used the same “demanding an industry probe” stunt at least twice, “Pretends” was the key word here. Similarly, don’t Biden’s staffers know he’s not the first government executive to try this stunt?
When operating at capacity – which requires the cooperation of the government on a number of fronts – we have more than enough fuel to meet all of our needs. We’re just not doing what needs to be done to get it to all of the places where it’s needed. So yes, Joe Biden has significant (though not complete) control over energy prices.”
A Canadian energy firm behind the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline said yesterday it would formally end the project. President Joe Biden revoked the company's permit to build an extension from Montana to Steele City, Nebraska, on his first day in office.
The canceled line was planned as the fourth phase of the larger Keystone pipeline, which is currently operational (see map) and transports more than 600,000 barrels of crude oil per day from Alberta, Canada, to refineries along the US Gulf Coast. The already built line, which enters the US in North Dakota, remains operational. The addition would have increased capacity by roughly 800,000 barrels per day, or 7% of US daily consumption.
The Phase IV extension was originally opposed over its environmental impact in US Great Plains states, but became a proxy for the larger debate over climate change. See a timeline of the project here.
Morning Brew 6-10-21
Canceled. The pipeline’s developer, TC Energy, said yesterday it was pulling the plug on the project after a decade-long game of tug of war over the pipeline's environmental impact.
Keystone XL wasn’t exactly an active construction site. President Biden rescinded the pipeline’s construction permit on his first day in office, reflecting his administration’s commitment to fighting climate change.
Why it matters: The announcement marks the end of a bitter feud that pitted environmentalists, Native American tribes, and farmers against Canadian officials and the energy industry.
The former group argued the pipeline would have widespread damaging effects on the environment, increasing greenhouse gas emissions and potentially leaking oil into a critical aquifer.
Supporters of the pipeline said it would create thousands of well-paying construction jobs and bolster US energy security.
Quick backstory
Well, not that quick considering the project was first announced all the way back in 2008. The plan was to build a pipeline carrying 830,000 barrels of crude oil daily from the oil sands of Alberta, Canada, to Nebraska, where it would link up with existing pipelines to carry it to Gulf Coast refineries.
President Obama delayed the project, then President Trump gave it the green light, until Biden squashed it again. Alberta had spent $1.1 billion on the project, and its demise will leave a bitter taste for Canadian leaders.
“We remain disappointed and frustrated with the circumstances surrounding the Keystone XL project, including the cancellation of the presidential permit for the pipeline’s border crossing,” Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said.
Environmentalists and others who opposed the pipeline, meanwhile, are overjoyed that their years of public advocacy paid off. “It's a great day for Mother Earth," Larry Wright Jr., chairman of Nebraska’s Ponca Tribe, said.
