As the Biden administration and Democratic Party are feeling the heat of self-inflicted energy-price-driven inflation, the scariest climate change they can expect will occur at November balloting precincts.
They could count on even a far worse voter rebellion if those elections were held a couple of months later when that dreaded global warming we hear so much about will likely be very welcome.
A recent report released by the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) warns that American household heating bills will increase dramatically this winter as consequences of soaring natural gas prices due to self-inflicted supply shortages which are compounded by coal plant shutdowns that have increased U.S. and global demand.
EIA forecasts that average U.S. household spending will increase for all heating fuels this winter (October through March), including natural gas (28%), heating oil (27%), electricity (10%), and propane (5%).
Whereas anti-fossil fuel Democrats are pushing for electric furnaces or heat pumps (which aren’t very efficient in colder climates), EIA says that households with gas-fired furnaces will spend about 31% less.
As noted in The Wall Street Journal, Northeasterners who use oil for heating will spend on average $2,354 this winter, up about double from $1,212 two years ago.
And despite price hikes, folks with gas furnaces will spend only about $1,094.
Nevertheless, Democrats in New York are blocking pipelines that would transport natural gas from Appalachia that are not only impacting neighboring states, but also forcing New England to import more liquefied natural gas (LNG) from overseas, which costs multiples more than domestic gas.
Importing LNG when America was so recently a profitable net exported makes no sense whatsoever, especially at a time when there is an urgent global shortage made worse by Western Europe’s Green Party obsessions that have made them highly vulnerable to dependence upon Russia for more than a half of their natural gas and about one-third of their oil.
So dire is Germany’s condition, that the government has agreed to nationalize the country's biggest natural gas importer, Uniper, which has already virtually declared a shortage emergency after being forced to withdraw fuel from its own storage sites to replace cutbacks in Russia deliveries.
Having eviscerated their own fossil and nuclear industries to become dependent on Russian oil and natural gas, Europe faces a stiff challenge in socking away enough to get through next winter while there is time to do so.
Earlier this month, the International Energy Agency (IEA) confirmed that "Europe’s security of gas supply is facing unprecedented risk as Russia intensifies its use of natural gas supplies as a political weapon," and that "The possibility of a complete cut-off in Russian gas deliveries cannot be dismissed ahead of the 2022/23 heating season — when the European gas system is at its most vulnerable."
Following an unhappy Democrat October election surprise from abroad, OPEC+, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its Russia-led allies, resisted Biden White House pleadings to produce more oil and did exactly the opposite, voting to reduce production by two million barrels daily.
As reported in the Wall Street Journal, Brent crude immediately rose back more than 2% above $93 a barrel, and OPEC+ which produces more than half of the world’s crude oil seems to want the price to go above $100.
Neil Beveridge, a senior energy analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, predicts that these OPEC+ cuts, combined with growing demand from China as its economy emerges from pandemic lockdowns, will lead to new shortfalls in oil supply that could push crude prices back to $120 a barrel by the end of 2023.
Desperate to show the public that it is doing something ahead of next month’s elections – short of ending its war on fossil fuels of course — the Biden White House is draining our U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) which was instead intended for non-political energy emergencies.
The SPR, which President Biden has already depleted by more than 40%, has previously only been used for three critical occasions: Operation Desert Storm in 1991 (17.3 million barrels), Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (20.8 million), and the Libya oil disruptions in 2011 (30.6 million).
The Administration first started tapping the SPR last fall to combat rising gas prices.
With the alarm clock ticking ahead of a Nov. 8 showdown, it now plans to go ahead and sell the last roughly 15 million of 180 million barrels they had authorized for sale back in March.
The White House claims that it plans to buy crude from international markets to refill the SPR — now down to the lowest level since 1985 — when prices are again at or below about $67-$72 per barrel.
Expect to see a cold day in hades before that happens so long as Democrats control Congress.
Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and the graduate space architecture program. His latest of 12 books is "Architectures Beyond Boxes and Boundaries: My Life By Design" (2022). Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.
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