We’ve told you about the energy con artists and their Kool-Aid drinking enablers.  We all know who the con artists are, and the thinking ones among us know it’s a scam, but the body count of those claimed by the energy con artist gang just keeps spreading.  Note the latest victims to be publicly linked with the scam.

One sure sign of a con artist organization, or their victims, is the refusal to talk to the press.  Here’s the latest Joe Isuzu update from the Gazette.

Related:

Burns Hargis Discusses Boone Pickens Energy Plan

Hat tip: OkStateNews

  From A to Z Energy ETF blog:Despite recent optimistic news on new shale gas reserves, the totality of North American natural gas production remains on a treadmill, as the grim EROI reaper has relentlessly raised the marginal cost of producing- to currently above the price of natural gas futures. While shutting in production is not easy to do once wells are drilled, low prices with rising cost structures can put the crimp on future expansion. Chesapeake (CHK), the largest US natural gas producer and operator of land rigs, announced last evening they will be curtailing production, cutting their rig count and reducing capital expenditures. Read more…

Quote of the Day: “Well Now, This Makes For an Interesting Game of Connect the Dots”

OK Legislators’ Blog: Dorman Calls Energy Forum an Educational Success

Our hearts really go out to former corporate commissioner and current Clean Skies Foundation CEO and Chesapeake shill Denise Bode. Bode left the corporate commission last year to head Chesapeake’s propaganda organization (Joseph Goebbels would be so proud!) that promotes the use of compressed natural gas or CNG.

Since it’s beginning, the Clean Skies Foundation has been deemed dubious by anyone with a pulse and a temperature of at least 98.6 degrees:

Wall Street Journal 4/26/07

“Chesapeake Energy Corp., founder of a coalition that ran a series of newspaper ads attacking the coal industry for selling a product that is filthy, says the campaign is ending after a round of protests from congressmen and trade associations.But Aubrey K. McClendon, chairman and chief executive of the Oklahoma City-based natural gas production company, says he will continue to battle the coal industry and is setting up a Washington group, the Clean Skies Foundation, to lead it.

The campaign featured a series of somber Hollywood models with smudged faces over a headline that said Face It, Coal is Filthy. The ads, which ran in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and several newspapers serving Capitol Hill, infuriated delegations from coal states and were disavowed by two major trade associations representing natural gas producers.” Read more…

Our sympathies for Ms. Bode are not because she heads this fake public interest group whose only real purpose is to siphon off milk from the public trough. (Hell, we’d write or say whatever McClendon wanted too for the kind of money she purportedly makes from this gig) No, it’s the fact that she has to try and write something interesting and fresh everyday on the Clean Skies blog. We know blogging everyday can be difficult, but at least we get to write about Oklahoma and national politics - two subjects that gives us a great deal of latitude. All Ms. Bode has to write about is CNG and how it is the second coming of Christ. For example, check out today’s post:

Light, sweet crude is not so sweet to investors, being replaced by sugar on the commodities market as the commodity of choice. Sugar demand is about to top production for the first time since 2006, the year prices reached a 24-year peak. India, the second-biggest grower, will reduce supplies 16 percent next year, shifting to more profitable crops. Brazil, the largest producer, expects to use 57 percent of its cane for ethanol this year, up from 54 percent. Refiners in Europe will process 15 percent less because a 2004 trade ruling bars growers from exporting surpluses.

“The last time the world consumed more sugar than it produced was in 2006, when the cane crop in Thailand was down for a third straight year and record energy prices boosted demand for alternative fuels. Futures reached 19.73 cents a pound on Feb. 3, 2006, the highest since April 1981.” Read more…

I guess what we’re supposed to take from this post is that oil is so “old school” now, that even the world deems sugar more important????

cro·ny cap·i·tal·ism (noun)

A pejorative term describing an allegedly capitalist economy in which success in business depends on close relationships between businessmen and government officials. It may be exhibited by favoritism in the distribution of legal permits, government grants, special tax breaks, and so forth.

Source: Wikipedia

T. Boone Pickens’s letter of Sept. 2 says: “I believe that with private investment and proven technology, we can generate 20% of our electricity from wind within 10 years.” No one is stopping him from achieving his goal. He should proceed with his plan. He should buy or lease property, install wind turbines, build transmission lines and sell as much electricity as he can. I just don’t want him asking for government subsidies or tax breaks along the way. If he can deliver electricity from wind power more economically than coal, natural gas or nuclear power, he will be rewarded. I don’t want the government spending money subsidizing an industry which cannot sustain itself.

Nor do I want the government creating artificial demand for natural gas by mandating it be used for transportation. The price of natural gas has risen dramatically in recent years and we don’t need to artificially increase the demand for it by using it to fuel cars.

We’ve already seen how government interference in energy markets with ethanol mandates and ethanol subsidies has driven up the price of corn and other food crops.

In response to Mr. Pickens’s request for a plan, here is my plan. Let the market decide, and don’t allow special interests and the government to interfere. When electricity from wind is more economical than other sources, wind will win. Until then, I’d like to keep my electricity, fuel costs and taxes as low as possible.

Dan Agan
Houston

 

Mr. Pickens’s energy plan is incomplete without mention of California’s Altamont Pass Wind Farm. During its long lifetime it has killed some 100 eagles and about 1,000 other birds a year. It has been in violation of the Endangered Species Act but seems to enjoy freedom from enforcement. We are a nation of law. Mr. Pickens must address this issue in order to have a plan with meaning.

Frank Cotter
Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.

From Stan Geiger - An Oklahoma blog

There is a public discourse underway, focused mainly on the generation of electricity. Windmills, nuclear and solar are all options on the table. But the fact of the matter is, most of our oil consumption goes to transportation. We burn oil fueling planes, trains and automobiles. If we are to shed our dependence on imported oil, we must come up with a new transportation fuel. Ethanol from corn isn’t the answer. There is an answer, however, lying right under our feet. It would be good if someone started paying attention to it.

Boone Pickens is right about one thing: we can’t drill our way out of this problem. At the same time, he’s wrong about nat gas being the solution.

Currently, domestic nat gas production barely keeps up with demand. If we start fueling rolling stock with the stuff, it won’t be long before we find ourselves in the same position with nat gas that we are currently in with oil: we will be dependent on foreign sources. Tulsa’s own super billionaire, George Kaiser, has reportedly made heavy investments in the liquid natural gas biz of late, if that tells you anything.

While the U.S. can’t become energy independent relative to oil and natural gas, it can become energy independent through the use of coal. The U.S. is the undisputed king of coal. We have, far and away, more coal reserves than any nation on the planet. China is a distant second. Read more….

Related:

OKPNS 5/17/08 Environmentalist Wackos in OK; The Heck With the Planet, Someone Save the Humans!

Muskogee Phoenix’s Dave Gerard: “So why are we suspicious of oil and gas companies?”

We told you to watch for a sellout: the sale starts now!

House Speaker Chris Benge is starting his “Sold Out” tour this week. The Speaker has bought into the CNG con being perpetuated by some rich Oklahoma and Texas con artists, and somewhere Al Gore is laughing his fat behind off at yet another Republican seduced by Ponzi-scheme solutions for Gore’s contrived global warming fantasy.

And what will the con artists get? The politicians who have sold out won’t want you to know, but here it is: a built-in market for their natural gas and, dare we say, monstrous amounts of tax credits. We also suspect legislation to require the entire state fleet of vehicles to run CNG, and you can bet the taxpayers, not the con artists, will be footing the bill.

It’s just the latest con job (remember ethanol?) foisted on the public by opportunists seeking to exploit America’s anger toward the energy situation. Do you remember natural gas promoters spending millions last year to stop a coal-fired electricity plant? Do you recall the results? higher prices for Oklahoma electricity consumers! If going green is so great, why does it feel like a prostate examination?

Remember the famous words: those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it. Apparently Mr. Benge slept through that part of history class.

So here’s a primer: when demand goes up, prices go up, and when demand drops, price drops! And we know what’s going to happen to supply if millions upon millions of Americans spend billions upon billions of dollars on retrofitting their cars and start burning CNG: lower supplies and higher prices. To put it another way, Mr. Speaker, after you spend thousands and thousands converting your vehicle to CNG, and millions of Americans start using CNG, the price will go up. Oh, and by the way, if millions stop using gasoline, the price of gasoline will go down.

Here’s our new slogan: CNG, it isn’t a bargain for long!

Remember the words of PT Barnum: there’s sucker born every minute. By the way, we thought you would enjoy a look back at some of history’s most famous con artists in light of today’s “Sold Out Tour.” It will help remind you that really foolish people are often taken advantage by con artists. It kind of puts things in perspective, doesn’t it.

Related:

The Oklahoman: Oklahoma House speaker touts natural gas as part of Oklahoma’s energy strategy

AP: Okla. House speaker proposes doubling CNG stations

We’ve been documenting the beanie propellers and compressed natural gas snake oil job that T. Boone Pickens has been peddling to the American people.

In Oklahoma and Texas, he’s bought influence by giving away money he’d otherwise have to pay in taxes, thus rendering many legislative and business leaders, and of course the MSM, deaf, dumb and blind.

Other parts of the country are not so intoxicated from freshly printed money/feedlot smell that emanates from the confidence job being sold by the former greenmail pirate gone “philanthropist.”

So it seems there are two types of people who are buying Picken’s folly: those he buys and those who are idiots. Some, it seems, wouldn’t know a renewable resource from an oil field sludge pit. Read about one of those poor ignorant souls here.

All we have to say is, “Pray for America.” With the clueless leadership we’ve had, we’re going to need a lot of Divine intervention to survive.

Related:

Republican.Senate.Gov: Dems Pick Pickens To Headline Energy Summit Despite His Opposition To Their Energy Plans

Video: T. Boone Pickens: “I Say Drill, Drill, Drill”

OKPNS: Hot Air About Wind Power

Looks like somebody has stopped drinking the Kool-Aid!

We’ve told you about the opportunistic energy con jobs being foisted on the public by snake oil salesmen.  The “wind power and natural gas will save the world” con is pretty easy to figure out if you separate the emotion from the equation, and today’s editorial in the Oklahoman of all places shows there is hope.  Take note of the line about how coal must be used in the national quest for energy.

The bottom line is: if the Oklahoman can figure out the con, anybody can!