Wacko Greenies Suing to Shut Down Power Plant Producing 9 Percent of California Energy

Almost ten percent of California’s energy comes from the last remaining Nuclear power plant, so let’s close it down since  “This is in a state where, according to EnergySage, residents already pay an average of $3,060 a year on their electricity bill — 34 percent higher than the national average.”

Let’s do it after a couple of Billion buckeroos have been spent on it to extend the life 5 years. Typical California where surly a friendly judge will be more than happy to go along with the thought to jettison the plant. Here are the details:

The Associated Press, an environmentalist group called Friends of the Earth is suing the U.S. Department of Energy over its decision to award funds to keep California’s last remaining nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon, open.

The DOE awarded $1 billion to keep the plant open past its planned 2025 closure date after Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said shuttering Diablo Canyon, which provides 9 percent of the state’s power, would leave California vulnerable to blackouts, according to regional conservative outlet The Center Square.

“As we experienced during the record heat wave last September, climate change-driven extreme events are causing unprecedented stress on our power grid — the Diablo Canyon Power Plant is important to support energy reliability as we accelerate progress towards achieving our clean energy and climate goals,” Newsom said in a 2023 statement.

In 2022, Newsom signed a bill to allocate $1.4 billion in loans to keep Diablo Canyon, located in San Luis Obispo, to extend its service life to 2030.

“Climate change is causing unprecedented stress on California’s energy system and I appreciate the Legislature’s action to maintain energy reliability as the state accelerates the transition to clean energy,” Newsom said at the time.

The move came after the state announced earlier in the year that it would ban sales of gas-powered cars by 2035; just days afterwards the California Independent System Operator, the non-profit organization which manages most of California’s energy grid, put the Golden State on notice that the stress charging electric vehicles would put on the grid would simply be too much to close a source of reliable, carbon-free energy generation.

CISO pleaded with EV owners to not charge their cars during “flex alerts” because it was “likely to strain the grid with increased energy demands, especially over the [Labor Day] holiday weekend.”

In January, the Biden administration chipped in $1.1 billion to extend the plant’s service life. So, naturally, the environmentalists sued, because reality doesn’t have to matter when you’re a privileged ideologue.

Keep reading.

So let’s do the math. They are spending billions to keep the power plant open just to 2030?? The DOE on behalf of all Americans dumped $1 Billion into it. Newsom in 2022 authorized $1.4 Billion in loans. Add that Californians are paying some of the highest energy costs?

And in the bigger picture, recall when Bunk here offered this post back in 2022?

Biden Shuts Down 2 Nuclear Power Plants, 4 Hydroelectric Dams, 1 Refinery

Shutting down oil, coal and gas? Just getting started. One refinery in the Virgin Islands, Limetree Bay Refinery. Nuclear? Turkey Point outside of Miami. Peach Bottom in Pennsylvania. Four Hydroelectric dams in Southern Oregon and Northern California – The Klamath River Dams. The indications from the agencies are they are just getting started.

Add that to Biden’s yanking 77 small refineries biofuel waivers that now put them at risk for bankruptcy.

This clip was from September 2022:

Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant operations extended through 2030 by California Lawmakers

The very best of the swamp today.

Biden Considering Releasing More Oil From Strategic Oil Reserves

 

“If pump prices keep rising, the Biden administration will shift gears and reconsider SPR releases, though we current do not think they are imminent.” Remember when the Biden admin said it would refill the SPR? Meanwhile Gold reached record highs yesterday for the fifth straight day.

So not only are we not going to refill the strategic oil reserve, Biden will no doubt release more of it as oil heads toward $100 dollars a barrel. Craven self-interest comes to mind in the Dems never ending battle to some way some how to win in November.

This statement alone should prove that Biden and his henchmen have little concern over the welfare of the Nation as the drums of war beat across the world, in no small part due to Biden’s ineptness.

Zero Hedge:

According to Bloomberg, Biden’s Energy Department said it was “keeping the taxpayer’s interest at the forefront” in its decision not to purchase as many as 3 million barrels of oil for a Strategic Petroleum Reserve site in Louisiana. The plan for the barrels to be delivered in August and September had been announced in mid-March. It has now been canceled meaning that the already dismal rate of SPR refill will now flatline for the foreseeable future, at least until the NBER admits the US is in a recession.

The Energy Department has been slowly refilling the emergency oil supply after it reached a 40-year-low following the administration’s unprecedented drawdown of a record 180 million barrels in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It currently holds about 363 million barrels, according to Energy Department data, down from almost 600 million at the start of 2022.

And just like that anyone hoping that Biden would add more than a few drops to the SPR can stop holding their breath: “Domestic crude prices are likely to remain too high for the remainder of the year for DOE to resume its refilling program,” said Bob McNally, president of consultant Rapidan Energy Group and a former adviser to President George W. Bush.

Ironically, Biden’s White House handlers didn’t listen to either the right, or the wrong call. And now they have $100 oil to deal with and the elections are 7 months away: good luck explaining the coming decision to drain another 60 million barrels in SPR oil in the next few weeks as a “national emergency” although we are certain they will try.

 

Strategic Petroleum Reserve will become a live issue for Biden this summer, says RBC’s Croft

Helima Croft, RBC Capital Markets global head of commodity strategy, joins ‘Squawk on the Street’ to discuss the situation in Damascus relative to oil prices, how the Strategic Petroleum Reserve will be used, and more.

 

Let us not forget as was posted yesterday as Ukraine targets Russian oil refinieries.

• Biden Loses Control of Zelensky, Makes Deepest Strikes In Russian Territory

Bonus: The news yesterday?

Gold Closes At Record High For 5th Straight Day, Dollar Dumps As Bond Bloodbath Stalls

 

The best of the swamp.

Congress to Close and Empty Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve in Latest Budget Bill

As congress bickers over that last give aways in the latest budget bill, this gem appears contrived. For what purpose?

In the scenario of the mega bill why this? One has to wonder whose long fingers were the creators of this gem. A million barrel reserve isn’t much, so what is the deal? This is one to follow the money….and authorship. 

The Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve, established in 2014 after Hurricane Sandy, is a one million barrel emergency reserve to provide supplemental supplies for a few days in the event of a hurricane or other disruption. However, the fiscal 2024 government funding legislation requires the reserve to be sold and closed. The writer of this nonsense even took the time to insert in the bill language to make sure it’s almost impossible for Trump to reopen it or create another reserve.

 

Zero Hedge:

On Sunday night, Congressional negotiators revealed a bill which will fund key parts of the government through the rest of the fiscal year which began in October.

According to Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer’s office, the bill “maintains the aggressive investments Democrats secured for American families, American workers, and America’s national defense.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement that “House Republicans secured key conservative policy victories, rejected left-wing proposals, and imposed sharp cuts to agencies and programs critical to the President Biden’s agenda.”

But what neither of them mention is that the bill also nukes the entire Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve – which, at roughly 1 million barrels, is too small to matter on a national scale – but which could serve as a critical cache of energy in the event of another major disaster.

The entire US 1 million barrel Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve will be required to be sold and closed in fiscal 2024, according to bill text of government funding legislation unveiled Sunday Did China write this bill? https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20240304/HMS31169.PDF

Is there any logical explanation?

Let’s make the Northeast as vulnerable as possible?

This means the Northeast will lose a crucial buffer that could have provided supplemental supplies during disruptions. According to the Energy Information Administration, the Northeast region (New England and the Middle Atlantic) consumed an average of 5.8 million barrels of gasoline per day in 2023. The Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve’s one million barrels would have only provided a small portion of the daily consumption in the region. Losing this reserve may increase the vulnerability of the Northeast to disruptions from hurricanes or other events.

Another thought?

They’re depleting the reserves and requiring Congressional approval to refill them so Dems in Congress can prevent Trump from refilling them, then blame him for the crisis they intentionally created. It’s all so blatant and obvious now.

Not just sell it, they then have to close the entire reserve infrastructure it looks like, and never open one again.

Then, the bill makes it even harder to establish regional reserves in the future – requiring several new layers of red tape. 

And the SPR is currently the lowest it’s been since the mid 80s

Rounding out the absurdity of this whole thing, let’s hear from another government savant. This was from a year ago:

We live only for the day apparently.

Democrat Sen. Maggie Hassan Wants To Drain The Northeast’s “Heating Fuel Reserve”

They will tell us it’s just the way the sausage is made… paging Speaker Johnson? Johnson???? As Nancy said, “we have to pass the bill to find what is inside it.” I am sure there will be more to be found.

The very best of the swamp

United States and its Bizarre Energy Policies – Now Bans Nat Gas Exports

John Kerry Told The Washington Post He Wants To Remove 1.6 Trillion Tons Of Carbon Dioxide From The Atmosphere Via Direct Air Capture Estimated Cost For Tax Payers: $1.6 Quadrillion Dollars That’s $1,600,000,000,000,000 (This isn’t a joke, he’s serious) “The lowest periods of carbon in the atmosphere and not only recorded history, in the history of life existing on the planet.

Just in: Can Biden get any dumber?

The Biden Administration on Jan. 26, 2024, announced that the U.S. would pause pending decisions on permits to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) to non-free trade agreement countries until the U.S. Department of Energy can update the underlying analyses for authorizations.

Tucker at his best at the absurdity of it all.

Tucker talks energy. Some cartoons were inserted in the interview, apparently the video lifted from somewhere. This is the only copy I could find. 

John Kerry Told The Washington Post He Wants To Remove 1.6 Trillion Tons Of Carbon Dioxide From The Atmosphere Via Direct Air Capture

Estimated Cost For Tax Payers: $1.6 Quadrillion Dollars

That’s $1,600,000,000,000,000
(This isn’t a joke, he’s serious)

“The lowest periods of… pic.twitter.com/8u0uyi0HDH

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) January 21, 2024

So in summation, the world continues on. The United states continues to play the Chump Card. Just for laughs and giggles. 

China is, by a very wide margin, the world’s largest consumer of coal. China’s consumption of coal exploded after 1999 and has more than tripled through 2023.

India has expanded its consumption of coal much more slowly over the decades covered in the data, but has more than quadrupled its consumption since 1996. Although its population has grown to exceed that of China, India recorded a little over 26% of China’s total consumption of coal in 2023.

The United States is historically the world’s largest consumer of coal, but the nation has greatly reduced its consumption since it peaked in 2005. In 2023, U.S. annual coal consumption has dropped by 70% from that peak.

Read more at Political Calculations

Other than that…the swamp continues.

Why the Capacity of Charging EV’s is Simply a Myth

No doubt by now most folks have heard about the sad fact that EV’s just can’t manage the super cold periods at all. Now we learn that charging stations can suffer the same fate and simply don’t work. Then let’s consider the strain on our grid to charge these beasts.

Electric vehicle (EV) drivers in the Chicago area have recently struggled to charge their vehicles amid frigid temperatures, contradicting the assertions of some EV proponents suggesting that fears about performance in inclement conditions are overblown.

Dozens of EV drivers reportedly lined up at EV charging stations to juice up their vehicles in Oak Brook, Illinois, but the bitter cold that has blanketed the area made that task effectively impossible, according to Fox 32, a local media outlet. Several organizations that promote EVs — a product which the Biden administration is pushing aggressively as part of its climate agenda — have previously suggested that concerns over diminished EV and battery performance in cold weather are inflated, but the experiences of drivers in Oak Brook seem to belie that notion. Source

Beside the cold weather, alarms have been sounded regarding the fact we simply don’t have the infrastructure to support them.

Here is one of the simplest and easiest to understand reasons why our grid cannot possibly manage charging these cars. They think we can charge busses and trucks too? I suggest showing this clip in about the fifth grade in school and then move on into the colleges. Nothing like a visual.

The man knows how to do the math.

something to think about going all electric ⚡️ pic.twitter.com/POWS8AV66F

— George K (@GKtheHunter) January 12, 2024

Just something to think about as we enjoy these frigid temps in much of the country.

Biden Missing in Action: 127 Nations Gather for Climate Change Conference.

Welcome to the world of alternative realities. The big shindig of 167 world leaders are preparing to gather in Dubai to discuss climate change. The man who is heading this thing up? The head of one of the world’s biggest oil companies has been named to lead the COP28 global climate talks in Dubai. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber is currently the chief executive officer of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

He is also the minister for industry and advanced technology for the COP28 hosts, the United Arab Emirates. And he plans on wheeling and dealing big time.

So while Sultan Jaber will be wheeling and dealing, Biden will not be attending. After the last gathering and looking foolish once more, his lackeys no doubt decided to bag this one. There was a time when our energy interests would have been front and center, but we apparently defer now to the UAE.

Who will attend? Of course Kerry will put his foot in his mouth and look to be the ass that he is. Craven John Podesta who will make sure 10 for the big guy(s) and whoever is needed to fill Biden’s re-election coffers. Add National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi.

Also add some big time mayors – Bowser will do what she can to promote D.C. as a prime terrorist tourist location.

WASHINGTON – Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser is facing criticism for taking a trip to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar this week to discuss climate change and to promote D.C. as a tourist destination amid spiraling violent crimes throttling the nation’s capital.

Bowser’s office said Saturday that the mayor will depart Sunday for the Middle East “as part of the US Conference of Mayors delegation for the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference.”

She will first visit Doha, Qatar to engage with leaders on the issues of infrastructure, sports and education, as well as promote Washington, DC as a destination for investment and tourism in partnership with the DC Chamber of Commerce,” her office continued in a press release.

The trip comes after the city recorded its 249th homicide for the year, the highest number of homicides since 2003. Homicides alone have spiked by 35% so far this year when compared to the same period in 2022, police data published Nov. 22 show.

Violent crime across the board has increased by 40% this year when compared to the same time last year.

Who is not going? President Biden…The United Arab Emirates planned to use its role as the host of UN climate talks as an opportunity to strike oil and gas deals, the BBC has learned. Leaked briefing documents reveal plans to discuss fossil fuel deals with 15 nations. Our interests apparently to take a back seat and not be represented.

BBC:

The documents – obtained by independent journalists at the Centre for Climate Reporting working alongside the BBC – were prepared by the UAE’s COP28 team for meetings with at least 27 foreign governments ahead of the COP28 summit, which starts on 30 November.

They included proposed “talking points”, such as one for China which says Adnoc, the UAE’s state oil company, is “willing to jointly evaluate international LNG [liquefied natural gas] opportunities” in Mozambique, Canada and Australia.

The documents suggest telling a Colombian minister that Adnoc “stands ready” to support Colombia to develop its fossil fuel resources.

There are talking points for 13 other countries, including Germany and Egypt, which suggest telling them Adnoc wants to work with their governments to develop fossil fuel projects.

The briefings show the UAE also prepared talking points on commercial opportunities for its state renewable energy company, Masdar, ahead of meetings with 20 countries, including the UK, United States, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Brazil, China, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Kenya.

COP28 is the UN’s latest round of global climate talks. This year it is being hosted by the UAE in Dubai and is due to be attended by 167 world leaders, including the Pope and King Charles III.

These summits are the world’s most important meetings to discuss how to tackle climate change.

Axios:

• Senior White House aides suggested that Biden was busy dealing with matters like the Israel-Hamas war, per the New York Times, which first reported the news.

The big picture: Over 70,000 delegates are expected to attend COP 28, which begins on Thursday. These include Pope Francis, who on Sunday confirmed his attendance despite having a lung inflammation.

• The White House released a schedule that shows Biden will attend the National Christmas Tree lighting and host a bilateral meeting with Angola’s President João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço, which will include a discussion on climate and energy.
• The only other event this week Biden is scheduled to attend is a Sunday reception for Kennedy Center honorees, including actor and comedian Billy Crystal; Bee Gees member Barry Gibb; singer Dionne Warwick; and rapper, singer, and actress Queen Latifah.
• “Although we don’t have any travel updates to share for the President at this time, the Administration looks forward to a robust and productive COP28 where Special Envoy John Kerry, National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi, and Senior Advisor John Podesta, among others, will continue to build on the Administration’s historic actions to tackle the climate crisis.”

The best of the swamp.

New Kansas EV Battery Factory Demands Huge Amount of Energy – Must Keep Coal Plant Open

The governor of Kansas chipped in $800 Million tax dollars to lure Panasonic to set up shop in their State. Biden? $6.8 Billion. No one discusses all of the environmental nasty stuff Kansas will have to deal with in making these batteries. Now we learn that the energy requirement to sustain the plant it will require continuing to keep a coal plant.

But wait…Biden is determined to shut down all coal plants. So let’s do the math today. Here we go:

A new electric vehicle battery factory in Kansas is demanding so much energy that the state needs to keep a coal plant open just to power it!

Japanese company Panasonic is set to receive $6.8 billion from Biden’s so-called ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ to help put more electric vehicles on the road that nobody wants.

The Cowboy State Daily reported:

A $4 billion Panasonic electric vehicle battery factory in De Soto, Kansas, will help satisfy the Biden administration’s efforts to get everyone into an EV.

It also will help extend the life of a coal-fired power plant.

Panasonic broke ground on the facility last year. The Japanese company was slated to receive $6.8 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act, which has been pouring billions into electric vehicles and battery factories as part of its effort to transition America away from fossil fuels.

The Kansas City Star reports that the factory will require between 200 and 250 megawatts of electricity to operate. That’s roughly the amount of power needed for a small city.

In testimony to the Kansas City Corporation Commission, which is the state’s equivalent of the Wyoming Public Service Commission, a representative of Evergy, the utility serving the factory, said that the 4 million-square-foot Panasonic facility creates “near term challenges from a resource adequacy perspective,” according to the newspaper.

As a result, the utility will continue to burn coal at a power plant near Lawrence, Kansas, and it will delay plants to transition units at the plant to natural gas.

…..

A 15-pound lithium-ion battery holds about the same amount of energy as a pound of oil. To make that battery requires 7,000 pounds of rock and dirt to get the minerals that go into that battery. The average EV battery weighs around 1,000 pounds.

All of that mining and factory processing produces a lot more carbon dioxide emissions than a gas-powered car, so EVs have to be driven around 50,000 to 60,000 miles before there’s a net reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

Biden Celebrates Coal Plant Workers Losing Jobs: “Shutting These Plants DOWN All Across America!”

H/T: Gateway Pundit

In a hearing last year we learn the true cost and demand to our grid if all homeowners were to charge  EVs in their homes.

At a House Transportation Committee hearing, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) questioned Sec. Pete Buttigieg.

No one wants the cars. An inconvenient truth.

The best of the swamp today.

Biden spends $1.2B to Suck up Carbon Dioxide Out of the Air

DOE plans on a $1.2B investment in direct air carbon capture projects that are “essentially giant vacuums that can suck decades of old carbon pollution straight out of the sky,” per Sec. Granholm.

“Renewable options alone won’t cut it. They won’t allow us to decarbonize at the speed & cost necessary to meet the moment. They don’t address emissions from fossil fuel infrastructure we’re currently using to meet energy needs, nor from key industrial processes.”

Best part?

Yes, and store “it” underground. It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature and these contraceptions of fiddling with the atmosphere could easier doom us as fast as their worry over the non-existent Global Warming hoax that is being perpetuated upon us.

Reality: There’s absolutely no guarantee this method or other methods will ever reach the scale needed to become powerful weapons against global warming.

You and I are on the hook for another round of waste and abuse of our tax dollars.

The bottom line: What is known as Carbon Dioxide is getting unprecedented federal support.

This story reminds me of the film Burt Reynolds in the film”Rainmaker” where he promised to make it rain.

Here we go:

The Energy Department announced Friday it is awarding up to $1.2 billion to two projects to remove carbon dioxide from the air in what officials said was the largest investment in “engineered carbon removal” in history.

The process, known as direct air capture, does not yet exist on a meaningful scale and could be a game changer if it did so economically.

“If we deploy this at scale, this technology can help us make serious headway toward our net zero emissions goals while we are still focused on deploying more clean energy at the same time,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a press conference.

Project Cypress will be built in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana. South Texas DAC will is planned for Kleberg County, Texas. Each claims it will capture up to one million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. A representative of the Texas project said it will scale up to remove 30 million metric tons per year once fully operational. No date was given.

Officials said the projects will create 5,000 jobs for local workers and people formerly employed in the fossil fuel industry.

The announcement shows the big bets the Biden administration is placing on technologies that capture carbon dioxide from the air and store it underground as a way to address climate change. It’s this gas more than any other that is heating the planet.

Read more Fortune

Here is one of the perpetrators of the fraud and how he is going to do it.

It’s all hands on deck.

Carbon Negative Shot is an all-hands-on-deck call for innovation in carbon dioxide removal pathways that will capture carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and durably store it at gigaton scales for less than $100/net metric ton of CO2-equivalent. Carbon dioxide removal, in conjunction with aggressive decarbonization, is a climate-critical activity required to reach our nation’s climate goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.

Just another Solyndra and the latest waste on electric bus boondoggle.

More like the classic film starring Burt Lancaster in “The Rainmaker.” who claimed to be able to make it rain.

That’s it folks….the best of the swamp.

House Hearing on Gas Stoves – 50 Percent of Present Gas Stoves Must Be Upgraded

This is Democrats highest priority right now…gas stoves.We learn that all appliances are up for review so it will not stop at gas stoves during a hearing yesterday. As promised by the old warhorse Gina McCarthy:

Gina McCarthy: “We’re actually going to do 100 rules this year alone on appliances.”

May 9, 2022 — bunkerville

Climate Adviser Gina…. she couldn’t get confirmed for any position in the White House such as head of the EPA as she had back in the Obama administration so they slide her in as Climate Adviser. I will give you a couple of flashbacks that cover this piece of work.

She is living her dream.. flashback 2014

EPA McCarthy will ‘go after’ critics who question agency

May 5, 2014 — bunkerville

But I digressed. Here is the hearing

The Department of Energy (DOE) on Feb. 1 published a proposed federal regulation that would require millions of household gas stoves in the United States to be modified for “energy efficiency,” according to the rule’s text, which has provoked an outcry from Republicans. In testimony before the subcommittee, Geraldine Richmond, the Under Secretary of Energy for Science and Innovation who oversaw the rulemaking process, said she does not know how an electric stove, the suggested alternative under the rule, would be installed.

“But I do!” exclaimed Perry. “You need to run a 220 line and you’ll need an electrician to do it. You’ll need to hire someone to come in and drill holes in your floor and pull wire to the panel, and hook that whole thing up,” he added, before asking whether Richmond had included the cost of installation in the estimated efficiency savings.

Natural gas stoves are used in 40% of all homes in the United States and are cheaper, as well as quicker to use, than electric induction stoves, according to Bloomberg News. The rule proposed by DOE would require 50% of stoves to be upgraded to meet new energy standards, according to Richmond’s comments during the hearing on gas stoves held on Tuesday.

Perry Grills DOE Official: ‘Do You Know What It Takes To Put An Electric Stove In Your Home?’

At a House Oversight Subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) questioned Dr. Geraldine Richmond about a potential gas stove rule.

H/T: Worldnet Daily

‘That Argument Is Not Flying With Me’: Lauren Boebert Grills DOE Official On Gas Stove Rule

At a House Oversight Subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) questioned Dr. Geraldine Richmond about a potential gas stove rule.

So sick of these people trying to control other people’s lives.

The best of the swamp.

Bonus Time:

Who Knew? House Hearing: Having a Gas Stove is Racist ApparentlyMay 26, 2023

U.S. Running out of Ammo, Keeps Drawing Down Oil Reserve

We hear this again….going to replace our oil reserves any day now. First we run out of ammo, Biden admits, because of this thing going on over in Ukraine, and if truth be told we are still emptying out our reserves. In fact the U.S. drew down more the last couple of months than ever before.  The headline reads

‘Massive US Oil Caverns’ Are Now Empty, Will Take ‘Decades To Refill’ Thanks To Biden.”  

While it took the Biden administration the better part of six months to drain the US oil supply down to a precarious 20-days of emergency reserves (a 40-year low), it will take decades to refill – if that happens at all, Bloomberg reports.

Perhaps even more noteworthy, the emergency reserves are equal to approximately just 20 days worth of supply – an all-time record low…

“DOE’s mismanagement of the SPR has undermined America’s energy security, leaving the nation more vulnerable to energy supply disruptions, and increasing the ability for OPEC and Russia to use energy as a geopolitical weapon,” wrote top House and Senate Republicans in a May letter to the Government Accountability Office, asking the federal watchdog for an audit of the reserve, Bloomberg reports.

The pace of refilling the SPR has been sluggish at best. While the Department of Energy (DOE) plans to replace barrels sold last year, it falls far short of the goal to replenish the reserves to its 2009 peak. Congress’s decision to strip $12.5 billion earmarked for reserve oil purchases further complicates the situation – as the DOE is now left with a mere $4.3 billion to acquire oil, an insufficient amount to fully restore the SPR.

Aging infrastructure poses additional challenges. The Gulf Coast salt caverns that make up the reserve were initially designed with a 25-year lifespan. As such, the risk of cavern dissolution increases with each drawdown and refill. Maintenance issues, along with the ballooning costs of the $1.4 billion modernization program, add further strain to the already troubled reserve. Keep Reading

More smoke and mirrors. Whiplash: U.S. to Buy 3 Million Barrels of Oil at $80 a Barrel After Just Selling 12 Million May 17, 2023 (Bunkerville)

Recall?

Republicans Laugh As Biden Claims Oil Might Be Over in 10 Years at the State of the Union

Biden’s DOE Rejects Bids to Replace Strategic Oil Reserve

January 11, 2023 — bunkerville 

At the time, Biden was saying that he would place the first order for three million barrels of oil for the SPR in February. That doesn’t happen overnight, so they opened up the process to take bids from the oil companies. As you would expect, the oil and gas industry responded, sending in their bids quickly. Those bids were turned over to the Department of Energy (which oversees the SPR), but the process remained under the watchful eye of the White House. This weekend we received our answer. Nobody’s bid was accepted. The DOE rejected all of them. Where we go from here remains a mystery. (Yahoo News)

That sale shrunk levels in the SPR to the lowest since 1984.

The administration has said it wants to repurchase the oil at around $70 a barrel.

The U.S. Department of Energy has rejected the first batch of bids from oil companies to resupply a small amount of oil to the nation’s emergency crude oil stockpile in February, according to a DOE spokesperson.

The Truth?

SPR Quick Facts 

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is a U.S. Government complex of four sites with deep underground storage caverns created in salt domes along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coasts.

(Note this month’s final report comes out on the 23rd.)

From Bunks pot of past gold

Here is a flashback and roundup of our shipping out our oil reserves that I posted in April 19, 2022

The truth of our oil reserves going abroad has been going on since 2021. I have been posting about it since forever. The media must be giving up on Biden to finally give the great reveal.

First post was:

U.S. Strategic Oil Reserve at 2003 low – Why Are We Tapping it? Where Did It Go? To Asia!

November 19, 2021 — bunkerville 

And of course our gal previously from Moveon.Org doesn’t know one thing about it.

How about someone covering the swamp ask again about our oil reserve???? How does anyone think this is not intentional.

Just the best of the swamp.