Natural Gas Now Best Picks – February 18, 2023

The Anti-Industry Industry

This article gets into depth about something I have been writing about for literally a dozen years; the pernicious influence of rich elites in regard to energy policy:

In 2021, the revenue for the top 25 NGOs in the anti-industry industry was more than four times the amount collected by NGOs that support the traditional energy sector. Those 25 anti-hydrocarbon/anti-nuclear NGOs had total revenue of about $4.5 billion which they used to fund campaigns on climate change, as well as efforts to promote renewable energy, stop the production of hydrocarbons, halt construction of new hydrocarbon infrastructure, prohibit the use of natural gas, oppose nuclear energy, and electrify everything, a move that would require massive increases in electricity production and the size of the electric grid…

Furthermore, the amount of money being collected by the top anti-hydrocarbon/anti-nuclear NGOs is soaring. Between 2017 and 2021, the amount of cash being collected by the 25 top NGOs—which includes entities like the Sierra Club and Environmental Defense Fund—has jumped by 155%, going from about $1.8 billion to $4.5 billion…

What is that agenda?

The article goes on to offer a full explanation of the elitist agenda insofar as its utter contempt for the welfare of the rest of us. It is excellent in that regard but doesn’t get down to the roots of the evil; which are land, power and the money that can be stolen from others to fund green eggs and scam. Ideology is but the fig leaf that hides the scam.

Hat Tip: R.B.

U.S. Leading As LNG Exporter Despite Biden

Although we are stuck with the absolute worst White House occupant since the Brits took over the place, ate James Madison’s dinner and drank his wine before torching the Presidential home, the U.S. has, nonetheless, prevailed over Joe Biden’s war on oil and gas to become the big gorilla of LNG exports.

At least three proposed U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plants have likely found enough customers to receive financial approvals this year, according to Reuters calculations, developments that would make the country the world’s largest LNG exporter for years to come.

After a dearth of plant approvals last decade, developers have secured dozens of long-term contracts to finance new multibillion-dollar LNG plants. The pace of approvals has accelerated as Europe has shifted away from Russian gas since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Part of this, of course, is that Biden, although he doesn’t want us to have natural gas, needs to support LNG for Europe. He needs to make up for the Russian gas he may well have contributed to denying the continent as part of his Ukraine policy. Defending the corrupt Ukraine regime from the corrupt Russian regime, moreover, may be more about protecting his son from influence peddling deals in which both father and son were inextricably intertwined than anything else. Regardless, our LNG success is a thing to admire.

Hat Tip: S.H. 

And, That LNG Is Saving Europe’s Butt!

Yes, Europe is saved for now by our LNG from its own stupidity of making itself vulnerable to Russian blackmail and Joe Biden:

Last year, Asia – including China – saw lukewarm demand amid high spot prices and a slowdown in the Chinese economy. With China’s reopening, however, demand for gas and LNG is set to rebound, increasing the competition between Asia and Europe for spot supply, analysts say.

Moreover, the weather in Europe has been milder than usual for prolonged periods so far this winter, allowing for less gas consumption for heating and power generation. It is far from certain that Europe, and the northern hemisphere as a whole, will see mild temperatures next winter, too.

Governments and regulators in the EU say that while a major gas shortage crisis has been averted for this winter, next winter could be more difficult.

“Prices seem likely to remain structurally higher than they were before the Russian invasion,” Henning Gloystein, director for energy, climate and resources at Eurasia Group, said in a recent note carried by Bloomberg.

Europe continues to add new LNG import capacity, especially in Germany and the Netherlands, but if global supply is tighter, prices will spike again.

Europe’s gas prices were up by around 3% at $58 (54 euros) per megawatt-hour (MWh) around noon in Amsterdam on Wednesday.

Prices have held in the $53-64 (50-60 euros) per MWh for weeks amid higher-than-seasonal gas inventories, mild weather, and steady inflows of LNG.

So, let’s set this straight. We have saved Europe’s butt not just twice in a little over a century but several times if we include the Cold War and this latest fiasco, but they still imagine they’re our superiors and our own elites agree with them. Get it? And, based on this story, we’ll have to do it again.

Hat Tip: D.S.

Climate Lockdowns?

Counterproductive COVID lockdowns by government empowered elites and enriched them beyond belief. Now they want more.

The United Nations (UN) has urged all countries to declare a climate emergency. The state of Hawaii and 170 local US jurisdictions have declared some version of one. So have 38 countries, including European Union members and the UK, and local jurisdictions around the world, together encompassing about 13 percent of the world’s population.

Hillary Clinton was reportedly prepared to declare a “climate emergency” if she had won the 2016 election.

A “climate emergency” is in the zeitgeist. Those words were surely uttered by the billionaires, technocrats and corporate CEOs attending the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos.

But what does it actually mean for the president of the US to officially declare a “climate emergency?”

Most people don’t realize that under US law, a national emergency declaration triggers a set of emergency powers that allows a president to act without the need for further legislation.

The Brennan Center for Justice compiled a list of the 123 statutory powers that may become available to the president upon declaration of a national emergency (plus 13 that become available when Congress declares a national emergency).

The scope of these powers is difficult to summarize, except to say that if exercised to their maximum extent, they potentially encompass vast areas of American life.

For civil libertarians across the political spectrum, from left to right, a “climate emergency” should be a focus of concern.

Even environmentalists who may instinctively and understandably support the idea should be worried about the potential for the authoritarian model of “emergency” governance that arose during COVID-19 to overtake climate policy…

So what would an official “climate emergency” look like?

Just like the “COVID-19 emergency,” it would be far-reaching, with potentially dramatic effects on the economy and society…

If a president attempts to directly intervene in industry after industry to accomplish these unrealistic goals — or pretends for political reasons to be trying to accomplish them — a “climate emergency” could gradually expand in scope to unimaginable proportions, unless reined in by the Supreme Court or the political process…

A 2021 report by Deutsche Bank said that we may have to accept “a certain degree of eco-dictatorship” to reach net-zero by 2050. The UN has suggested countries are moving too slowly, leaving us with no option but the “rapid transformation of societies.”

And Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, said, “only root-and-branch transformation of our economies and societies can save us from accelerating climate disaster.”

…the “COVID-19 emergency” initiated on Trump’s watch and carried on by Biden has unfortunately set a new and troubling authoritarian precedent that cannot be ignored.

Nowhere is that precedent more apparent than in the lingering notion of “locking down” the population…

What these “climate lockdowns” would amount to is various forms of “green austerity” — strict limits on consumption and personal behavior — imposed on the population…

At the direction of an executive order from President Biden, HHS recently established an Office of Climate Change and Health Equity. “We will use the lessons learned from COVID-19” to address the effects of climate change on the nation’s health, said HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Rachel L. Levine…

Just the opposite. All signs indicate that the US and other world governments want to expand the reach and control of the globalized industrial food system, further concentrating power in the largest Big Food corporations.

Governments around the world are using environmental goals to forcibly shut down small farms as they promote dependence on industrial technologies and factory foods that could make climate change and other environmental problems worse.

Read the whole thing.

Hat Tip: R.N.