How did we get stuck with the Natural Gas Scam?

Discussion in 'Energy' started by 101101, Aug 14, 2020.

To remove this ad click here.

  1. 101101

    101101 Well-Known Member

    How did we get stuck with the natural gas scam? I guess I don't know. All I have is conjecture. It might be helpful if more people knew how we came to get caught up in such a destructive ponzi. Its likely not a story that can be told in terms of new technology I think it really is a political story and we have to look at its political origins. So much of our problem in the US is there are so many people that by hook or by crook got their personal money or their retirements stuck in this natural gas quicksand.

    Berkshire and the natural gas ponzi- realized when Buffet was buyer of last resort for all the shale wreckage it was because it was him and Munger that sold so many in the US the shale ponzi in the 90s. You see he associated otherwise sound value investor type investment rent seeking with shale. Those businesses would show up in Valueline with high scores in the 1990s because their managements in that community learned to play by those rules. But there really wasn't a mote for natural gas because it was too theromdynamically lean (total energy in vs total energy out) and too toxic and unstable to be sustainable. But they were attracted to the finders keeper seemingly turn key rent seeking model- the pure political poison. And out of that came the numb-skull PNAC and the last two utterly lost decades. And what a great plan- outside the Debeers type scam I think they knew there was no peak oil dilemma its Thorium decay behind it all. But instead of going to clean Thorium or clean waste free nuclear that was suppressed from the beginning because they didn't want proliferation through the spread of any kind of perfected nuclear (because it could mask the spread of the dirty kind that produces weapons) and also because they wanted broken nuclear to supply sufficient MAD stock piles exclusively for themselves and because they wanted fossil fuel addiction for other countries so they could shut off their lights by cutting the energy supply as they did with Japan in WWII and because they wanted the scarcity austerity inducement of hyper resource intensive fossil fuels to hedge deflation (not a risk if you use soveriegn fiat right) because of all this they went with the thermodynamic ponzi of shale. Like going from coal cigars to oil Marlboros to selling teens light cigarettes with shale.
    And now it turns out that liquid air batteries are awesome like pumped hydro from air and we see the cng industry was doing this the whole time in processing the shale but just wasting the energy used to compress by not putting a turbine on their sell side to recapture energy just to sell more stupid wasteful shale in production costs. Only collusion allowed it. But against green it just makes sense to convert those CNG plants by order to liquid air batteries and cut them off from processing CNG. Because even with recouping some of that on processing CNG will never ever be remotely profitable again even with continued subsidies. The Ponzi is up. Now if something better than terrestrial scale hot fusion comes along like vacuum energy and wipes out wind, solar and solid state storage the difference is at least these green investors weren't dumb suicidal parasites worthy incarceration for a combination of willful negligence, recklessness and malignancy. And these green investors in trying to use money with awareness as a corrective will be worthy of being bailed out not the least to preserve faith in taking reasonable risks. Natural gas even when it was pitched as slightly cleaner (not true) or more stabilizing because more equitably distributed was never that but was just a justification for stupid imperialism and wars of aggression and dumb derivatives scams that caused austerity and collapses and the efforts to endlessly bailout its thermodynamically unworkable ponzi have been criminal. Think, PNAC, Enron and unnecessary blackmailing rolling blackouts, fires and gas outs and 911 and Afghanistan and Gitmo and Libya and Patriot Act, secret democracy destroying laws, surveillance state, endless gag orders and the 07 crash and all that incredible unjustifiable stupidity and all that war crime and again insanely corrupt secret law and domestic spying and austerity and the huge increases in personal debt and the defunding of education and going backwards on education and the dynastic entitled garbage from the Bushes and the Clinton all to protect this moronic ponzi scam. Thanks Buffet and Gates- Gates was recently saying electric cars aren't good enough and implying their batteries are not clean to produce- while MS says it will wipe out its historical carbon load by 2050 its President Brad Smith said we will need more energy so it is imperative that Microsoft continue to support (so called) companies- ah not its imperative that fossil fuel energy companies be put out of business as fast as humanly possible so we can make a proper example of dumb money.
     
  2. To remove this ad click here.

  3. 101101

    101101 Well-Known Member

    And in thinking on the extent politicians have gone in trying to maintain these oligarchs and their rent seeking which is totally destructive to the public interest look at the attempts by Baker and Tillersom to make social security contingent on the continued existence of fossil fuels by tying its funding to a carbon tax- when fossil fuels are already a pure non-self sustaining wefare case. And then look at how the GOP and then the DNC tried to make access to health care contingent on paying inflated insurance mandate (instead of single payer) where those fees are inflated by the insurance companies constant purchase of fossil fuel stocks which socializes their losses. Same thing for public pensions not meeting their funding targets because constant enron style buying and socializing endless fossil fuel losses. And look at the 8 fraudulent gwhrs of NG installed this year at prices sometimes 24x per khw more than battery backed solar and will go year after year with unjustifiable inflation adjustments on long term contracts- these contracts were pure idiot criminal fraud- we need to be able to void them and make the fossil fuel companies responsible scrap the infractructure at their expense and jail the politicians and execs. Its nothing but the Enron fraud continued and never really dealt with because it was hidden not unintentionally behind 911. Barr said we are on the edge of becoming socialist. Well this is the oligarchic form of socialism already- we need to move to the kind that serves the people instead of undermines them.
     
  4. SouthernDude

    SouthernDude Active Member

    What are you going on about? Natural gas was successful in the past decade because it became several times cheaper than coal for the same unit of energy and natural gas turbines are almost twice as efficient as conventional coal turbines. This isn't some scam or ponzi scheme. Natural gas just outcompeted coal. A large portion of coal generation was taken off the grid because of natural gas in the past decade.

    Also, all energy sources in some way get subsidies from the government. A subsidy is essentially the government either directly providing funds - e.g. federal loan gurantees, production tax credits, etc. - or from the government opting to take less money than it otherwise could through tax credits - e.g. investment tax credit.

    Thirdly, there isn't some fossil fuel oligarchy conspiracy happening in the US or any western nation. That is just ridiculous.
     
    Schreibdave likes this.
  5. 101101

    101101 Well-Known Member

    No you're just ridiculous only a fool wouldn't see it. And no not every form of energy needs to be subsidized only those that are thermal dynamically so challenged across their logistical and use stack that they are sub threshold on economic efficiency. And no natural gas didn't out compete anything. You can't get it any where for under 6 cents a kwh. And without utterly massive tax exemptions and subsidies it would always be bankrupt. Even with all its subsides and exemptions it had to be rescued with the Trump tariff (even in Texas all the planned plants had been canceled because it couldn't compete economically.) It has never been self sustaining and never will be. It never competes on cost right now and never will! People put in too many heat pumps in the south and a stupid pipe line got cancelled and Warren Buffet had to come in eat the wreckage as a buyer of last resort. It is a ponzi and a conspiracy and it constantly drives stupid wars and bailouts disguised as wars and other such things its the primary reason for all the useless derivative ensuring all of its bad stranded asset debts- nothing transparent would allow insurance and it is another tcking tmb for a repeat of the 07 collapse. Its worse in the US than any place else because the US stupidly allows private property owners to claim the mineral rights. Battery backed utility solar inherently weaker than roof top and unsubsidized and without tax exemptions is already at 1 cent a kwh- it doesn't vary much with geography- it always a crime/fraud when new NG goes in- needs to out with the contractor taking the full cost of scrapping it. Natural gas was going bankrupt again before covid. It just got another useless bailout- makes you wonder whether COVID wasn't just another distraction to bail it out. It was always failing and for more than a decade its been promising to bankrupt Deutsche bank and for the better part of a decade been promising to bankrupt a bunch of mid west banks- is a key part of the reason so called 'energy' stocks represent only about 5% of the S&P 500 where they used to represent 25%. Natural gas is the primarily reason for all the stupid derivatives in the world always threatening to destroy the financial system again. It is one the worst things that ever happened to this country and the world. Without bs nautural gas we wouldn't have had the selection of Bush, Enron, the coup on Davis, near bankrupting of CA, 911, Iraq, Afganistan, Libya and all this royalist inbred idiocy in the US were people spouses are supposed to be able to be president or people's children just be cause they're in there in the useless oligarch club. Has anything damaged American democracy more than than the natural gas scam? And what puts human survival at risk more than the crap known as natural gas? Nothing. The idea that it is even debatable that our survival is supposed to be at risk and science is getting warped and democracy destroyed so that some backwards, beligerant, negligent entitled rent seekers get returns on ill-gotten gain is almost beyond belief.
     
  6. To remove this ad click here.

  7. SouthernDude

    SouthernDude Active Member

    Uh. Yes it did. Natural gas was the cheapest source of energy in the earlier half of the last decade. Wind and solar didn't start outcompeting natural gas until recently.

    Minerals are a part of private property. It's neither stupid or a mistake to recognize mineral rights as private property

    That is hilariously absurd. Natural gas is nowhere close to being a causal factor in most of those events listed - I have no idea what coup on Davis is even referring to.

    Uh. No. Natural gas is not in any way shape or form causing harm to America's "democracy". If you think this, then you have no idea how the US government actually functions.

    The only thing beyond belief is that you think this sounds sane. The world is not controlled by some super "evil" fossil fuel elite. lol
     
  8. SouthernDude

    SouthernDude Active Member

    This is true. Now that wind and solar are effectively the cheapest sources of energy in most of the country, the overwhelming majority of new capacity will be those sources. This decade, wind and solar will be the primary emissions reducing force. I highly doubt that coal will be on the grid past 2030 purely on economics alone. It seems like every month there's a new coal retirement announcement.
     

Share This Page