Clean, Plentiful And Cheap… The Only Energy Solution
In January 2008, I saw President Obama as he stumped through Baltimore. His speech, as most politicians’ speeches are, was a laundry list of giveaways. At the time Obama’s popularity was unprecedented; he had been anointed and was the chosen one (especially in Baltimore).
That’s when I put out an article saying he was going to get elected, was going to be the worst president since Polk, and would, in fact, bankrupt us.
I was called racist by some – which is the always the first argument of an emotional Democrat. But not only was that e-mail article the most forwarded in Taipan Publishing Group history, but it was also prescient.
Obama is doing his best to turn this country into Argentina. And judging by his approval rating, folks are starting to realize that…
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a fan of any politician. To be president you must, by definition, be a pathologic liar, a backstabber and a whore. You have to sell yourself so often to so many people, it turns out that you’ve sold 10 times more than you own.
That said, there are a couple of things I wanted Obama to do that I thought was reasonable. The first was to have a coherent plan for U.S. energy.
There is no question that all of our wars and foreign entanglements revolve around the need for cheap oil.
It has been proven time and time again – from the time the Nazis invaded North Africa, to the ‘70s when the Saudis turned off the spigot, to the Gazprom dispute with Europe last year – that cheap energy is the lifeblood of any modern economy.
Expensive energy destroys economies, jobs, manufacturing, transportation and, most importantly, political careers (think Jimmy Carter).
The good news is the U.S. has a vast amount of natural gas. In fact, we now have 58% more than we had four years ago.
According to The Wall Street Journal,
The amount of natural gas available for production in the United States has soared 58% in the past four years, driven by a drilling boom and the discovery of huge new gas fields in Texas, Louisiana and Pennsylvania, a new study says.
The U.S. has more than 2,000 trillion cubic feet of natural gas still in the ground, or nearly a century's worth of production at current rates. That's a 35.4% jump over the committee's last estimate, in 2007, of 1,532 trillion cubic feet, the biggest increase in the committee's 44-year history.
This news is startling! Here we have the answer. It makes you want to drive to Washington, grab some wonk by the lapels, shake them in a mad, spittle-flying fury, and scream, “Natural gas is the answer!”
But no, it’s not happening… Obama is pushing his Freddie Med plan, drinking beer in the Rose Garden, and solving a pissing contest from Cambridge.
Government is there for two basic reasons: the first is to protect us from other humans. The second is to ease the flow of trade by building roads, cutting tariffs, and standardizing things like railroad gauges.
Right now, due to new drilling techniques called fracking, we have an abundance of natural gas, which burns cleaner than any other hydrocarbon. And despite what your Birkenstock-wearing, pot-smoking, whale-hugging environmentalist would have you believe – hydrocarbons are the only energy solution for mass transportation.
It would only take Obama, and Congress, to mandate that all gas stations sell compressed natural gas as well as gasoline for the U.S. to get out of the Middle East and Afghanistan forever.
And yet the only guy talking about this is T. Boone Pickens. And no one seems to be listening.
China, on the other hand, is going full steam ahead with its switch to natural gas. It has mandated that taxi-fleets, buses and other government cars run on natural gas, which the country gets from its abundant coal beds.
So, the next time you have a beer with Obama, politely inform him that he needs to push natural gas infrastructure. And while you are waiting, you can buy one of these: http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-gx/, which will fill up in your garage.
If you are looking to invest in the future of energy in China, you can start your search with China Natural Gas (CHNG:NASDAQ), Far East Energy Corp (FEEC:OTC.BB), and Pacific Asian China Energy (PCE:TSX).
Or if you like T. Boone’s plan you can invest in his company: Clean Energy Fuels Corp (CLNE:NASDAQ).
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