It's time for an energy reality check

The Obama Administration vilifies energy from fossil fuels and it is inexplicable.  He once had some appreciation for natural gas but lately, President Obama seems to be cool on natural gas and has grown increasingly uncompromising in his damnation of fossil fuels as the villains in his push for his climate agenda.  Not surprisingly he has escalated his advocacy of renewable fuels.

It has to leave any informed American scratching their head. Before you go and hit the comment button to vent your anger, let me be very clear. I have written about renewable/ sustainable fuels many times. I am an advocate of such sources of energy. I am also a realist. My mantra is simple; plentiful, reliable, cheap.  I am an energy agnostic. I have very big problems with the Obama Administration’s Energy policy.

Here’s why. According to the Energy Information Administration, our energy consumption in May was a staggering 7.46945 Quadrillion BTU’s. A quadrillion is a 1 followed by 15 zeroes in the U.S. (If you live in Britain it is a 1 followed by 24 zeroes. No, I don’t know why.I am going with the U.S. definition because that is where the U.S. EIA is located.) 15 zeroes or 24, however you write it, that is a lot of energy.

In order to consume it, we have to produce it and in May we produced 7.36 Quadrillion BTU’s of energy.  For the sake of simplicity I am limiting the decimal places to two; not rounding up or down.  Renewable energy accounted for almost 11% of production.  That is better than the 9% produced by nuclear power plants, but it is dwarfed by fossil fuels which accounted for 78.55% of all energy production that was produced in May. There is your energy reality check.  And, btw, Alaskan natives bought tv ads stressing the importance of energy development in the state in an attempt to give President Obama a little bit of a reality check. of their own.

Renewable sources have come a very long way but in no way shape or form are they ready to power a nation and an economy the size of the United States. Now, I know I can not compete with the President doing a reality show in support of his policy agenda but I can be so boring that your eyes and head will hurt. So, to inflict minimal pain let’s get a very brief reality check on CO2 and global temps. For that, you can go to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration’s National Climate Data Center page. 

Here you will find a graphic looking at changes in global temperatures and CO2. The surprising thing here for the alarmists on global warming is the massive amounts of CO2 way back in the Paleo days. If you want to avoid boredom, you can always check out this column by Forbes.com contributor James Taylor. (no, not the guy on a Country Road) I also feel compelled to point out fact about greenhouse emissions, this time courtesy of the Environmental Protection Agency:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/billtucker/2015/09/01/its-time-for-an-energy-reality-check/?ss=energy