Friday, March 07, 2014

The Ukraine Crisis Is An American “False Flag Operation”?

 
Eia-Dec 13
Pipeline     4.70
Liquefied  8.75
Export
Pipeline    3.92
Liquefied 13.4

The Guardian today:
In Washington, there is a growing appetite to retaliate against Russia with a long-term, strategic acceleration in energy exports. Exporting US gas obtained through fracking would be controversial among environmentalists, Democrats, and US industries reliant on cheap energy, the price of which would be expected to rise if supplies were being piped abroad.
Republicans, backed by gas producers such as ExxonMobil, have for years been pushing to dramatically increase gas production to enable export trade, and are using the crisis in Crimea to argue for swift action by the Obama administration. 
US gas production is projected to rise 44% by 2040, according to the US Energy Information Administration, and producers have been pressing the Obama administration to expand exports of natural gas. 
The Republican leader of the House, John Boehner, used an an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Friday to call on Obama to “dramatically expand production of American-made energy” and make US supplies of natural gas available to global markets.

You get it; the US natural gas industry is withholding 15 billion cubic feet a day from the American market...to inflate the price of energy to us. Maybe more!

Remember the propane shortage and price crisis this winter was driven by the exporting propane overseas.
See how they abuse altruism today...”altruism” is such a dirty word. The NYTs and the Obama administration are using the fear of the Russians and the fall of the Ukraine to drive an internal domestic policy. They want to in an emergency fashion open up the exportation of  liquefied natural gas. They couldn’t get this policy passed on the merits domestic and external issues.
This is really not a complicated model or computer program today. Model the energy markets...and run what the result would occur if we supplied 15 billion cubic feet a day of natural gas to Europe. What would happen to the price. What fedural control we going to put on the domistic market. Oh, the private corporation would save us.  
Right, we want to send our natural gas bounty to the expensive markets of Europe and Asia...   
So let me get this straight, just like the propane shortage this winter....we are going to provide lignified natural gas to Europe and the Ukraine to make up for the Russian upcoming cutoff.
This is the congressional bailout to the nuclear and coal industry... 
Oh brother, this has got to spike natural gas prices... 
I bet you our intentions are we are subsidized the hell out of the lignified natural gas exports.  
We are letting them borrow a billion dollars. 
How about Europe develops ling their own energy supplies instead of being dependency on Russia or the USA. 
Who is now going bail out our poor and middle class in the USA
Right, here everyone wins...we bailout the coal and nuke folks...we make the natural gas folks richer than they could ever could imagine.

Then they buy our our democracy!

Everyone wins!
But do you hear a peep from the NYTs and the Obama administration on what this would do to the cost of our cost of natural gas and increasingly our electricity prices.
You just don’t get it. "All Of The Above Energy Policy" means all of the energy sources collude against us for exaggerated prices. It basically means the highest cost source sets the price of everyone else...the US administration bypasses the free market.
They then collect just a fraction of the profit...they turn our government against us with 100s of billions dollars of excess profit. They buy out our political system!
This issue with the Russia, the Ukraine and natural gas...this looks exactly like our energy sources ganging up on all us...look exactly like these trumped up events and their exaggerations.  


America's Natural Gas Lever

By MICHAEL WARAMARCH 7, 2014

STANFORD, Calif. — The news that the Obama administration wants to use America’s new natural gas abundance as a lever against Russia offers a chance to change a long-term dynamic in Europe, which allows an undemocratic petrostate to dictate terms to our closest allies.

This won’t happen overnight, and it won’t be of use in the current crisis. But by accelerating the process now, we can give our allies freedom to respond to future aggressions like the one in Crimea. And we will increase our capacity to shape coalitions that manage a resurgent and aggressive Russia.

Europe imports 15 billion cubic feet of gas per day from Russia. This dependency has emboldened and financed the Russian government while hampering Europe’s ability to respond. America faced this dilemma six years ago as it struggled to confront Russian aggression in Georgia. But that was before horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing unleashed America’s shale gas.

At present, the United States lacks the capacity to ship any of this natural gas overseas. But an export terminal capable of supplying three billion cubic feet of gas per day in liquefied form is under construction in Cameron Parish, La., and numerous others are in the planning and permitting stages. These vast projects hold the potential for a long-run solution to problems like the one in Ukraine.

The hitch is that these projects are bedeviled by a complex and uncertain permitting process, especially in order to sell their gas to countries, like those in the European Union, that haven’t signed a free-trade agreement with the United States. As a result, each project must petition the Department of Energy for a finding that exporting gas to our European allies is in the “public interest.” Events of the past week show that the energy security of our closest allies is decidedly within the public interest of the United States.

The president can help to accomplish this by issuing an executive order finding that liquefied natural gas exports to our allies meet the legal standard. The president should also direct the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Energy Department to expedite the complex permitting process for these terminals, consistent with state and federal safety and environmental laws.

In doing so, Mr. Obama should make clear that the intent of such action is to give Europe flexibility, not to cut Russia out of its European gas business.

The truth is that today, gas suppliers in both the United States and Europe would choose to ship their gas to Asian markets, where it is most valuable. But global markets evolve. As more natural gas export capacity comes online, this price differential should erode and European utilities could find American natural gas an attractive option.

Having that option in a crisis is valuable. Even if Europe is not the normal destination for American natural gas, it might welcome it under extraordinary conditions. Diverse energy supplies also prevent crises by removing the incentive to use energy as a tool of geopolitics.

Those who oppose gas exports are rightly worried about the economic and environmental consequences. Both are real concerns, but the former is an acceptable cost and the latter can be managed with tougher environmental rules.

Some fear that gas exports may cause gas prices to rise in the United States. The laws of supply and demand suggest that they are right to some degree. The Obama administration should acknowledge this policy cost and its impact. But the crisis in Ukraine illustrates why this is a price worth paying.

Others fear that gas exports will encourage further hydraulic fracturing for natural gas, which can cause local air and water pollution. Here, the administration can offer a deal to companies profiting from shale gas resources. In exchange for facilitating access to foreign markets, the federal government should set minimum national environmental standards. Production of additional gas, under stringent regulation, is in the national interest. But local communities should not have to pay the price of unacceptable air or water quality.

Some in the environmental community also worry about the impact of higher gas prices on greenhouse gas emissions: Gas exported may mean more coal burned at home. Here, the rules the administration is developing to regulate fossil-fuel-fired power plants should blunt any impact. Also, environmental advocates can take comfort from the fact that lower-cost gas in Europe would reduce the competitiveness of dirty power plants in Europe. Lastly, Mr. Obama should redouble efforts to regulate methane leaks from gas extraction and transport infrastructure.

There will be costs to breaking the codependent relationship between Russia and Western Europe. But these costs are a price worth paying to eliminate Russia’s ability to flout international norms with impunity.

Michael Wara is an associate professor at Stanford Law School.

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