Cheap gasoline prices were key to the Trump-era "boom" for the bottom half of income earners destroyed by the Great Recession

Reported here in "Inflation-shocked low- and middle-income Americans may not spend normally for years":

“For a very large share of Americans, the bottom 60% are spending more on essentials than before the pandemic,” said Michael Pearce, Oxford Economics deputy chief U.S. economist. “The burden is hardest among the lowest income but also touches middle income. Spending patterns of low-income Americans will take years to recover.” ...

The last time low-income Americans’ discretionary spending fell this much, which was during the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2008, it took five to 10 years for spending patterns to return to previous levels, he said.

“And the reason was gas prices fell,” Pearce said. Global oil prices fell by about 70% between 2014-16, which pushed pump prices sharply lower and helped low-income Americans catch up.

“It’s harder to see some revolutionary cost saving (like that) on the horizon,” he said. 

          

Harder to see only if we continue with the green energy nonsense.

The opportunities are YUGE for Trump/Vance because ALL energy costs much more now.

It's not just gasoline. Get the government boot off the neck of fossil fuel producers and gasoline will come down, natural gas will come down, and electricity will come down. 

Base energy from coal should be transitioned to nuclear, which works in cold weather and hot weather without fail just like coal, unlike natural gas, wind, and solar, which are fine where appropriate but not as base energy, the energy you must have when you need it when the sun doesn't shine, the wind doesn't blow, and the gas won't flow.

J. D. Vance knows:

 

 

Democrat fools like Jennifer Granholm retired 108 gigawatts of coal electric capacity 2011-2021, now say we need 200 gigawatts new capacity by 2050

It took 16 years to get this reactor operational, 15 for Unit 3. Each of these new units are rated for net summer capacity of 1.1 gigawatts.

By 2028 alone it is estimated the US will need 38 gigawatts of new peak demand capacity.

 

Remarks as Delivered by Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm on Startup of Vogtle Unit 4 and Growth of U.S. Nuclear Industry

Waynesboro, GA
May 31, 2024

Startup of Unit 4 makes Vogtle the largest source of carbon-free power on U.S. electric grid:

To reach our goal of net zero by 2050, we have to at least triple our current nuclear capacity in this country. That means we’ve got to add 200 more gigawatts by 2050. Okay, two down, 198 to go!

Biden restarts Obama's war on new coal leasing ended by Trump . . . just in time for the election

 

 In one of its biggest steps yet to keep fossil fuels in the ground, the Biden administration announced Thursday that it will end new coal leasing in the Powder River Basin, which produces nearly half the coal in the United States.

Climate activists have long pushed the Interior Department to stop auctioning off leases for coal mining on public lands, and they celebrated the decision. It could prevent billions of tons of coal from being extracted from more than 13 million acres across Montana and Wyoming, with major implications for U.S. climate goals. ...

Last year, the Powder River Basin generated 251.9 million tons of coal, accounting for nearly 44 percent of all coal produced in the United States. Under the bureau’s [Bureau of Land Management] determination, the 14 active coal mines in the Powder River Basin can continue operating on lands they have leased, but they cannot expand onto other public lands in the region. ...

The Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign estimates that 382 coal-fired power plants have closed down or proposed to retire, with 148 remaining. ...

Trump ... pledged to immediately end the Biden administration’s freeze on permits for new liquefied natural gas exports in a second term . . .. He also pledged to start auctioning off more leases for oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and to lift restrictions on drilling in the Alaskan Arctic. 

More.

If you want to know why the price of electricity is up 41%, this is why

 Obama/Biden built that.

Obama's war on coal has resulted in the elimination of electrical generation capacity equivalent to the entire nuclear power sector, and these idiots wonder how America ended up running out of electricity

Starting from 2012 and going through 2022, ~ 106 GW of coal-fired capacity was eliminated in the US.

Of the ~ 200 GW remaining, ~ 23% is scheduled to be eliminated through 2029.

Meanwhile China just builds and builds and builds new coal-fired capacity. It now has at least 1,109 GW of coal-fired capacity, five times more than the US.

Sultan al Jaber keeps COP28 lunatics from taking the world back to the stone age lolz

 Anger and frustration as COP28 draft text omits fossil fuel phaseout

The burning of coal, oil and gas accounts for more than three-quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions. It is for this reason that so many had pushed for the COP28 outcome to show that “we are truly at the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era.”

However, COP28 President Sultan al Jaber faced a backlash last week when he claimed there was “no science” behind calls for a phase-out of fossil fuels, and that such a move would not allow sustainable development “unless you want to take the world back into caves.”

They always leave out that 82% of global energy comes from coal, oil, and gas.

You can't just wave a magic wand and make it all go away without committing global murder in the process.

 

Boltneck sounds the alarm lol

 John F. Kerry, who served in Vietnam, let one go at the Dubai Climate Change Conference during his anti-coal spiel.

Wind energy. Bronx cheer. Emissions. Passing greenhouse gases. Loud fart. It's all here except for the skid mark.

Chris Christie credits Fed interest rate policy for denting government-spending-induced inflation but misses the role of collapsing energy prices

 Chris Christie is a smart guy with many of the right ideas about government spending, taxes, inflation, energy, and the environment.

But it's a real stretch to think that the timid interest rate increases of the Fed are responsible for this year's so-far moderating inflation indicators when it's falling energy prices since the winter which deserve the real credit. Christie himself admits that outrageous government spending hasn't been curbed at all.

His is a simple binary view which, while conventional and correct as far as it goes, doesn't get to the heart of the current matter. 

Low energy prices have always been and remain key to a successful economy, and it was the spike in natural gas cost inputs because of the Russia-Ukraine war which accelerated inflation globally, not just in the US.

Fed chair Jerome Powell was correct in June of 2021 to believe that inflation would be transitory for "weak supply" reasons, but the Fed rate increases didn't actually commence until the start of the war in Ukraine, which compounded those reasons with the cutoff of European natural gas supplies.

But since the winter the natural gas price is down 73% from peak, coal is down 70%, and gasoline is down too, but a comparatively modest 24%. 

Americans consumed in 2022 the energy equivalent of 26.9 billion kWh/day of natural gas, 13 billion kWh/day of gasoline, and 7.9 billion kWh/day of coal.

Natural gas is twice as important as gasoline in the overall American energy picture, primarily for heating, and as a substitute for coal in electricity generation.

Natural gas produced 4.6 billion kWh/day of electricity in 2022, the top source of electricity, vs. coal at 2.3 billion kWh/day and nuclear at 2.1 billion kWh/day.

Chris Christie is right though. We must "uncap" US oil and gas production and be energy independent.

Europe's natural gas storage, by the way, is presently 93% full as the war in Ukraine drags on. They are ready.

The US used 88.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day in 2022. We presently have about 35 days in storage.

Crude oil consumption in 2022 was about 20.3 million barrels per day. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is down to about 17 days of supply, from about 35 in 2011.

 

Watch CNBC’s full interview with GOP Presidential Candidate Chris Christie

Christie lets Fed off the hook for inflation, blames Trump and Biden for overspending

 

 

OPEC expects global oil demand to rise to 110 million barrels per day by 2045

 Reported here.

2022 global production averaged 80.6 million barrels per day on one accounting.

OPEC must think the 2022 figure closer to 90 million bpd since it projects growth in demand of 23%.

According to this, crude oil remained the top primary energy source in the world at 31.2% in 2020, followed by coal at 27.2%, and natural gas at 24.7%.

71% of China's primary energy is derived from coal. China is the world's number one emitter of so-called greenhouse gases.

The State of New York is run by green energy extremists who hate your use of natural gas, same as in California and Washington

First they came for your toilets, dishwashers, and clothes washers, and you said nothing.

Then they came for your coal, and you said nothing.

Then they came for your lightbulbs, and you said nothing.

 

WaPo ignores that it was Obama's war on coal which impoverished the Ohio River Valley and is now going hungry after the end of COVID-19 food assistance

A mile-long line for free food offers a warning as covid benefits end

 

In Kentucky, a state that has been hit particularly hard by the collapse of the coal industry, entrenched poverty and hunger have been generational problems that state and federal officials have struggled for decades to address. 

More.

 

Obama's war on coal began immediately after his election.

 

 

LOL WaPo, stroking Gen Z for not driving cars because of "significant effects on carbon emissions"

Here:

If Gen Zers continue to eschew driving, it could have significant effects on the country’s carbon emissions. Transportation is the largest source of CO2 emissions in the United States. There are roughly 66 million members of Gen Z living in the United States. If each one drove just 10 percent less than the national average — that is, driving 972 miles less every year — that would save 25.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from spewing into the atmosphere. That’s the equivalent to the annual emissions of more than six coal-fired power plants. 

Six!

Oooh. Sounds like a lot.

 

 

Germany boosts electricity from coal to 10 gigawatts, a drop in the bucket

 Bloomberg, here:

Germany now generates more than a third of its electricity from coal-fired power plants, according to Destatis, the federal statistical office. In the third quarter, its electricity from the fuel was 13.3% higher than the same period a year earlier, the agency said.  

Germany as recently as 2019 still had 40 gigawatts of electricity capacity from coal, and planned to reduce that to 27 by 2022, so obviously Germany has much more capacity available than 10 gigawatts during its present natural gas supply crisis caused by the Ukraine war.

But Germany's more serious mistake than reducing its coal capacity was its voluntary and hysterical reduction of nuclear generation capacity by 40% in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in 2011. Now it's got just 3 reactors left out of the 17 it had back in the day. 

Meanwhile US electric capacity from coal in 2021 dwarfed the German, at about 210 gigawatts, but that is way down from almost 318 in 2011, a similarly ideologically driven, self-imposed, and illogical reduction of 108 gigawatts, or 33% in ten years.

The foolish growing reliance on unreliable "green energy" in the US and the turn away from coal which began in earnest under Obama has meant increasing unreliability of electric resources during extreme events, and a huge increase in the duration of power outages experienced by customers.

The average customer outage was just north of 8 hours in 2020 vs. about 3.5 hours in 2013, an increase of over 130%.

This will only get worse if America tries to rely on wind and solar at the expense of fossil fuels and nuclear.

 

 

There was nothing wrong with the coal or natural gas plants of the Tennessee Valley Authority: It was one-off wind damage and too many far-flung customers dependent on its electricity for heat

 Cold weather pushed up electricity use in TVA's seven-state region where more than 60% of homes are heated by electricity. ...

TVA Chief Operating Officer Don Moul is heading an investigation of the problems that led to the power outages last week. Moul said in a telephone interview that high winds damaged several of TVA's protective structures at the Cumberland plant and several gas-fired combustion turbines used for such peak power periods. TVA's directive to local power companies to cut some of their energy use was the most efficient means to respond to the inadequate energy supply, Moul said.

More. 

 

The left, of course, is blaming the fossil fuels themselves instead of wind damage to existing energy infrastructure, whose maintenance has been neglected in the rage for so-called green energy and against coal:

"[T]he mandatory blackouts were due to coal and gas failures," [Amy] Kelly [the Tennessee representative for the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign] said.

     

The hysteria of this prejudiced response is matched, however, by the feckless customers of the federally-run utility, whose only care is that their power was cut when it was 5 degrees F outside, and on Christmas Eve:

 

"Why would anyone in their right mind decide it is a GOOD idea to have rolling blackouts today? First of all, it is a whopping 5 degrees outside and second, it is Christmas Eve ... This is ridiculous."

Tennessee has had plenty of much colder temperatures than this Christmas and never had to turn off the power before, but that was before they went insane

 What we know: TVA ordered rolling blackouts for the first time in 90 years amid freezing temps

Tennessee Valley Authority retired 3,370 MW of coal electric power capacity in 2012, 2017, and 2018.

The reason for that isn't because the plants were old, built in the 1950s. TVA still operates a bunch of much older hydroelectric plants dating back as far as 1911.

It's pure anti-fossil fuel ideology driving that, and foolishly allocating new capacity to solar and wind, which can't cut it.

And that's why they had to shut off the power in Tennessee for the first time.

The damn fools got 0.7 inches of snow and said it was one inch deep, too.

 

CNN thinks November core inflation at 4.7% yoy is good news

There's never any discussion about how core inflation vaulted to the current levels well before the war in Ukraine even began.

The reason for the inflation surge is Biden's war for green energy, the one input which makes everything cost more because green energy costs much more than conventional energy from coal, oil, and natural gas.

Add trillion$ in COVID stimulus chasing too few goods and it's a recipe for the disaster which is ongoing, not moderating.

Some people get it. Most don't.

 

 

 

The Fed's Favorite Gauge Shows Price Increases Are Moderating

Despite 2015 Paris climate agreement, global reliance on coal grew by about 8%, looks to grow 23% more, shattering Greta's world, lol

 The NGOs report said there are currently more than 6,500 coal plant units globally with a combined capacity of 2,067 gigawatts. ...

Urgewald’s Schuecking told CNBC that since the 2015 Paris accord was signed, the global coal plant fleet had seen a net increase of roughly 157 gigawatts. That’s the equivalent of Germany, Russia, Japan and Poland’s coal fleet added up together.

The research found that 467 gigawatts of new coal-fired capacity were still in the pipeline worldwide. And, if realized, these projects would increase the world’s current coal power capacity by 23%. ...

China was found to be responsible for 61% of all planned coal power capacity additions and, perhaps unsurprisingly, the top four coal plant developers were found to be Chinese companies . . .. China Energy Investment Corporation was the world’s top thermal coal producer last year. This was closely followed by Coal India . . ..

I omitted Schuecking's temper tantrum parts of the story, here.

She is, predictably, a German environmentalist wacko who is also against nuclear power. Urgewald is full of crazy Karens just like her who agitate against corporations and try to get individuals like David Malpass of the World Bank fired because they don't mouth the right words like the Paris Climate Accord hypocrites do.

Urgewald is Exhibit A for the prospect of Germans freezing to death this winter.

Denmark restarts two coal and one oil power station, Germany restarts three coal power stations

From the story:

Orsted said the order applied to “unit 3 at Esbjerg Power Station and unit 4 at Studstrup Power Station, which both use coal as their primary source of fuel, and unit 21 at Kyndby Peak Load Plant, which uses oil as fuel.” ...

A few days before Orsted’s announcement, another big European energy firm, Germany’s RWE, said three of its lignite, or brown coal, units would “temporarily return to [the] electricity market to strengthen security of supply and save gas in power generation.”

 

Austria's "Survival Lily" says there's no firewood left to purchase and the people have moved on to coal, which also is soaring in price

 

Low winds for a whole year, huh

 In Germany last year, in part because of low winds and the already rising price of natural gas, hard coal and lignite accounted for 28 percent of electricity production.

Seems like an awful long time to be without wind but still depend on it.

More.