Biden chooses England over New England

 

U.S. pledges to ramp up supplies of natural gas to Britain as Biden and Sunak seek to cut off Russia

 

 

 

Meanwhile consumers of the really important things like food and energy are getting pounded with persistent, huge price increases

 

I don't know about you, but my natural gas and electric costs are up 71% from two years ago

 Why?

Basically a combination of demand for domestic electric power production, demand for LNG exports to Europe because of the Ukraine war, low inventories headed into the winter, and fear.

Prices have quadrupled.

And Biden is considering ending all offshore drilling.

We are so screwed by these Democrat clowns.

Why Have U.S. Natural Gas Prices Soared Since 2020?

. . . natural gas production levels are at record highs, so we can’t blame a lack of production on this issue. This is from soaring demand, led in the past two years by the fastest-growing LNG export market in the world.

A series of Russian businessmen meets with sudden unexplained deaths

 Ravil Maganov, the chairman of Russia’s second-largest oil producer Lukoil, died on Thursday after falling from a hospital window in Moscow

Gazprom executive, Alexander Tyulakov, was found dead in his garage near St Petersburg

Sergei Protosenya, a former top manager of Russia’s largest liquefied natural gas producer Novatek, was found dead with his wife and daughter at a villa in Spain

Former Lukoil manager, Alexander Subbotin, was found dead in the basement of a house outside Moscow 

Vladislav Avayev, an ex-vice president of Gazprombank, was found dead in a Moscow apartment, also with the bodies of his wife and daughter

Story.

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.

LOL, Bitcoin mining operations in Texas threaten power limits, perverse grid operator blames coal and natural gas plants for being offline when overreliance on wind in summer is to blame

 From the story here: 

ERCOT blamed forced outages at coal- and natural gas-fed power plants, and low wind power generation. A spokesperson declined to provide details on the number or type of generating plants that were offline and prompted conservation measures. ... As on Monday, it avoided forced cuts when big power consumers agreed to halt operations. Lee Bratcher, president of Texas Blockchain Council, said all of the state's large-scale Bitcoin mining operations, which consume about 1,000 megawatts, are currently offline because of ERCOT's call for conservation and high power prices.

Texans face rolling blackouts because "wind generation is currently generating significantly less than what it historically generated in this time period"

 Actually, it's because Texas retired reliable sources of electricity from coal and natural gas for unreliable "green energy".

The New York Times as usual just leaves that part out, here:

The regulator forecast demand in Texas to peak at 79,671 megawatts, just short of the 80,168 megawatts that will be available.

That's a forecast margin of just 497 megawatts.

Texas has retired 6,453 megawatts of coal generation capacity since 2017 and added 3,945 megawatts of wind generation capacity.

In addition Texas has retired 2,316 megawatts of natural gas generation capacity since 2008 and added 3,425 megawatts of solar generation capacity since 2010.

Not only is Texas short a net 1,399 megawatts of generation capacity over the period, if the wind doesn't blow it's potentially short another 3,945 megawatts, and another 3,425 megawatts if the sun don't shine.

Way to go, Brownie.

Germany's Economy Minister Robert Habeck of its Green Party says Germany will fire up the coal plants to produce electricity and conserve natural gas for winter heating as Russia reduces gas shipments

 Reality trumps ideology.

‘The situation is serious’: Germany plans to fire up coal plants as Russia throttles gas supplies

Sometimes the UK Daily Mail can screw up a story as badly as The Grauniad, but Drudge is even worse

"Converted to non-condensing by 2029" is definitely NOT what the story says. Quite the opposite.

And Drudge's headline is also false:

Biden plans for all to pay $350 to upgrade to 'energy efficient' furnaces... 

$350 is how much more the more efficient condensing furnaces cost. You just won't be able to buy the old non-condensing variety after 2029.

The Biden rule isn't going to force anyone to pay anything unless they elect to buy a new furnace after 2029, in which case you'll be able to get only the more expensive, more efficient type.

I bought one way back in 2008, with a DC motor for the blower which is where the real savings come from: On the electricity used to move the heated air.

Too bad the story never mentions it.

 

Gee what a coincidence: Natural gas inventories in the Lower 48 are down 17.6% year over year and my utility just raised my monthly budget plan payment for the next year by 18%

 

Russia to hit full capacity for natural gas storage this summer with virtually no market left in Europe and no pipelines to Asia, forcing it to shut down wells

 So says George Soros, and this guy, here:

Leon Izbicki, an associate at Energy Aspects, agrees that Russia’s gas storage is close to being full.

“Russia went into last winter with record high stocks of around 72.6 billion cubic meters and aims for an even higher underground storage target for winter 2022 of 72.7 billion cubic meters,” Izbicki added via email. “While we do not have visibility on Russian underground storage, it seems plausible that Russia could reach this target this summer already.”

He added that that Russia lacks flexibility in its gas storage and does not have the means to divert gas from Europe to, for example, Asia due to a lack of pipeline infrastructure.

Phony Russia lies to its people same as the West lies to its people: Demand for payment in rubles starting tomorrow is just face-saving for Putin at home

Meanwhile Russia continues to sell natural gas which Europe desperately requires, and Putin continues to rake in the dough he needs to continue the war and undergird his regime. 

The headline is purely for Russian public consumption.

Putin signs order demanding gas payments in roubles from Friday :

The decree Putin signed on Thursday authorises the state-controlled Gazprombank to open foreign currency and rouble accounts for gas purchases. European buyers would pay in foreign currency and then authorise Gazprombank to make the conversion into roubles, which would then be used to formally purchase the gas.

Phony western nations have excluded just one Russian bank from SWIFT, hard currency from energy sales continues to pour in, Ruble recovers to 84 on the Dollar

Despite Western sanctions, Russian ruble and banks are recovering

 

At the moment, only one of Russia's five largest banks, VTB, has been cut off from SWIFT and subjected to full blocking sanctions, said Fishman, who is now adjunct professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University.

 

Environmentalists sneered at Trump's promotion of natural gas, and Europe didn't want his Freedom Gas in 2019, now they're cutting deals for US LNG which Trump made the US the world's third top exporter of by 2019

EU strikes gas deal with the U.S. as it seeks to cut its reliance on Russia :

The White House said the EU said would work toward the goal of ensuring, until at least 2030, demand for approximately 50 billion cubic meters per year of extra U.S. LNG. This is “consistent with our shared net-zero goals,” it added.

 

U.S. liquefied natural gas export capacity will be world’s largest by end of 2022:

U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacity has grown rapidly since the Lower 48 states first began exporting LNG in February 2016. In 2019, the United States became the world’s third-largest LNG exporter, behind Australia and Qatar. Once the new LNG liquefaction units, called trains, at Sabine Pass and Calcasieu Pass in Louisiana are placed in service by the end of 2022, the United States will have the world’s largest LNG export capacity. 

The environmentalist wacko Democrat Governor of Washington State Jay Inslee sneered at the idea of freedom gas:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Europe rebuffed Trump's LNG in 2019, preferring the cheaper Russian gas:

 

 

 

Hero Joe Manchin won't support Biden climate lunatic Sarah Bloom Raskin for Federal Reserve Board

 

This red diaper doper baby thinks it would be a good idea for banks to refuse to lend to the oil and gas industry in order to end it.

She's an Obama administration retread.

Story.

Low energy Joe: Brian Deese, Director of the National Economic Council for Joe Biden, wants to eliminate fossil fuel use completely

 

Listen.

Electricity use alone in the US is 60% derived from natural gas and coal in 2020.

This is their idiotic message in a crisis.

Low energy Joe: The batshit crazy loons of the Biden regime think this crisis is an opportunity to just jettison overnight the 60% of our electricity generation which comes from hydrocarbons

 President Biden's Chief of Staff wants a clean energy revolution.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, revolution would mean breaking most of the eggs.

LOL lunatic New York City to ban natural gas connections after 2027 to reduce CO2 emissions by 0.036% by 2040

 The commie Mayor Bill de BlowMyNoseio calls this a critical step to fight back against climate change on the local level and guarantee a green city for generations to come.

North America emitted 5.78 BILLION tons in 2020. The NYC reduction over 12 years will come to just 2.1 MILLION tons.

No projection was given for the reduction in population this will produce in NYC.

However, states like Texas and Arizona have barred cities from implementing such changes, citing that consumers have the right to pick their energy sources.

 

Story.

 

Tucker Carlson is another one who thinks America will be to blame for a Russian invasion of Ukraine, omitting certain uncomfortable truths

 https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/12/08/tucker_carlson_ukrainian_lobbyists_have_all_of_washington_heading_for_war.html

Tucker omits that Russia lost the Sevastopol naval base to Ukraine from 1991-2014 after the fall of the USSR, after which Putin took it back by force in the annexation of Crimea, an act of aggression unanswered by Obama. But Russia had paid rent to Ukraine for use of the base during that intervening period. It's not like they were or are entitled to it, Tucker.

George W. Bush set the precedent for all that in the first place by not answering Russia's aggression in South Ossetia in 2008.

Tucker also omits that Germany is hostage to Russian natural gas by choice, having embraced the madness of green ideology and abandoning their own sources of energy.

This spirit and habit of appeasement shouldn't be continued or encouraged, especially one in the service of a banal, libertarian, materialistic understanding of "American interests".

LOL California's Governor Newsom takes drastic action to make it look like he's not a total raving lunatic as recall vote looms Sep 14

 

And so temporarily, or so they say, the state has been forced to set up five natural gas power plants in order to avoid rolling blackouts. This move is the result of an emergency order signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last month. 

More.