REPUBLICANS:  Have stepped up calls for increased levels of domestic oil production as gasoline prices rise.  Makes sense!  It’s in our own country!!

DEMOCRATS: Want to repeal about $2 billion in annual tax breaks given to big oil and gas companies including Shell. They acknowledge that such efforts won’t bring prices down at the pump, but repealing the incentives will reduce the federal deficit.

How about cutting back on giveaways instead??

Your contact lense will recognize people’s faces, print out their biography, and give you subtitles as they speak German or Chinese or whatever. The military is pioneering this technology.

Fact or Fiction?

There will now be a decline in domestic output of crude oil this year…Way to go..now that we should be trying to be independent of Middle East oil.

Deep water drilling in the Gulf accounts for about 1.25 million barrels of oil a day – or about only one- quarter of America’s domestic crude oil production.  The Gulf contribution is expected to drop a bit, by about 18,000 barrels a day in 2011, says the US Energy Information Administration.  Drilling in shallower water is unabated and 26 new wells have been issued permits.  BUT IT IS A WASTE OF TIME TO DRILL SHALLOW WELLS! Oil simply ain’t there!

WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was in Laguna Beach, California this weekend and found out an interesting tidbit…I was speaking with someone from Yugoslavia.  He was telling me that unscrupulous people run all the gas pipelines in Russia.

Russia has the largest natural gas reserves in the world.  They have enough to supply the world’s natural gas for 300 years.  With that said,  they  supply all the natural gas to Europe.  With one turn of the switch by the Russians, Europe could be brought to its knees.

Believe it or not??

Folks in other countries are not fools.  They know they can take advantage of the situation right now and increase business (drilling) in their own territorial waters while we struggle.

How serious is the drilling retrenchment in the Gulf?  I’ll give you one statistic today.

As of mid Dec. 23 rigs were drilling in deep water (If you remember, most shallow wells have been drilled and deep water is where it’s at if we are to try to become independent on foreign oil) as compared to the 52 just before the Deep Water Horizon well exploded in late April. This is info from the Louisiana Dept of Natural Resource.

I’ll give you more reasons in the next blog.

Gulf Coast drilling will be a nail – biter!   Deep water drilling is back but sluggish.

As I’ve said earlier in one of my blogs..the oil business is one of the most heavily regulated businesses in the world even before the Macondo oil spill.  Now with stricter regulations, will some of our oil companies look to drill abroad?  What’s wrong with this picture folks when we have a lot of off shore oil and we could keep it within the US??

-Oil companies in Louisiana have been hit so hard with regulations that they are on a wait and see as to whether they can continue operating.

-With the US Governments reshuffling of the regulatory regimen, they’re worry is that the stricter drilling rules will be worse than the moratorium, creating such a financial burden that oil firms will not commit to long-term projects in the deep-water gulf.  Think about this.  If we want to become oil independent you tell me how we’re supposed to go about it?

Folks outside the US are not fools…and I’ll tell you why in the next blog.

1. Due to the Japanese holocost, the new era of nuclear plant construction in the US will have to be reexamined.

2. Because of this Fukushima disaster, Wall Street has refused to to underwrite loans for any new nuclear plant unless 100% of the loan is guaranteed by the federal government.

3. At $10 billion per reactor will nuclear reactors be too expensive to build?

4. Some observers say that low natural gas makes gas turbines a cheaper option, whereas others say that we should double or triple the size of our nuclear fleet to face our ongoing energy challenges.

Money and fear have made the job of the nuclear industry a lot tougher.

China has 14 nuclear reactors..26 are under construction (the most anywhere)…with that said they are suspending approvals for new nuclear power so it can conduct new safety checks.  However, and I quote from the Christian Science Monitor:  “nations such as China have centralized governments that tend to be able to go ahead without too many legal or regulatory impediments and without much concern for public opinion.”

In the United States, the new nuclear power generation will not come from politicians, regulators or a frightened public. Then where will it come from?  Tune in tomorrow.

France and Japan have no oil and very little coal.  They are going to have to go ahead because they have to.

1. United States - 104 operating reactors – no more under construction

2. France – 58 operating reactors with 1 under construction

3. Japan – 49 operating reactors with 2 under contruction

4. Russian Federation - 32 with 10 under contruction

What will be the path of nuclear energy now?  Next blog will let you know.