The Biden Administrations is saying it is time to sacrifice American Jobs to save the planet. Energy Secretary nominee Jennifer Granholm, as she testified at her confirmation hearing, said very clearly that jobs will have to be sacrificed. Our new incoming Energy Secretary and the Biden Administration are more than willing to sacrifice jobs, economic growth while they allow other countries to pick up the slack from what will be falling U.S. oil and gas production.  

While Present Biden says he sees his policy as one that will revitalize “the U.S. energy sector, conserving our natural resources and leveraging them to help drive our nation toward a clean energy future, creating well-paying jobs with the opportunity to join a union, and delivering justice for communities who have been subjected to environmental harm.” The reality is that we are sacrificing jobs today for jobs that may or may not be created in the future. Jobs from companies that do not exist and jobs from companies that can only survive with government subsidies.  We are also allowing OPEC and Russia to have greater influence over global oil prices and allow counties that do not produce oil as cleanly and efficiently to fill the void without the benefit of US Environmental oversight.

Image Source: Pixabay

Green jobs that were promised by the Obama Administration were never created. The ones that were created paid much less than the ones than the jobs that were lost. Many of those green jobs were created in China and China took advantage by dumping cheap solar panels in the U.S. bankrupting U.S. companies.

Then-Vice President Joe Biden led the oversight of the Obama green Energy Spending that even the Obama Administration was far from a success. In 2008, the Obama Administration promised that they would create 5 million green energy jobs. They invested $150 billion over 10 years to advance a clean-energy economy built around biofuels, hybrid cars, low-emission coal plants, and renewable sources such as solar and wind. Yet how many jobs were created?

Bloomberg News reported that as in November 2010, the President’s Council of Economic Advisers said federal recovery spending had “saved or created” 225,000 clean-energy jobs, including “both the direct jobs of people involved in the construction of a particular project and also the jobs generated by the additional economic activity parked by these projects.” They go on to say that “ There’s no way to know whether this multiplier effect resulted in the number the administration claims. But if you take it as true and generously assume similar growth for 2011 and 2012, that is 675,000 jobs created at best—and 4,325,000 to go.

According to the 2019 U.S. Energy Employment Report (USEER), 611,000 people worked in zero-emission technology industries, including renewables and nuclear in the United States. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) recorded even higher renewable energy employment in the United States at 855,000 direct and indirect jobs in 2018. Jobs in energy efficiency experienced significant growth—the sector now employs more than 3 million people in the United States. IRENA reports that, globally, the renewable energy sector employed 11 million people in 2018, 700,000 more than in 2017.

The Government made bad and inefficient decisions at trying to pick winners and losers in the green energy space and the jobs promised by the Obama Administration never materialized. While we have seen growth in the sector it fails to be self-sustaining without government help. They subtract wealth from the federal government while oil and gas pay tax revenue to state local and the Feds.  The Federal Government did a terrible job in making investments that were based not science or data or business soundness but just throwing money at companies that had good lobbyists or a green dream,

Or based on hopes that their technologies might work. Most did not. Who can forget then-Vice Present Biden gushing over-investment in Solyndra? 

A flash from the past “ Vice President Joe Biden, appearing via satellite from Washington D.C., announced the Department of Energy has finalized a $535 million loan guarantee for Solyndra, Inc., which manufactures innovative cylindrical solar photovoltaic panels that provide clean, renewable energy. The funding will finance the construction of the first phase of the company’s new manufacturing facility. Annual production of solar panels from the first phase is expected to provide energy equivalent to powering 24,000 homes a year or over half a million homes over the project’s lifetime. Solyndra estimates the new plant will initially create 3,000 construction jobs, and lead to as many as 1,000 jobs once the facility opens. Hundreds more will install Solyndra’s solar panels on rooftops around the country. "This announcement today is part of the unprecedented investment this Administration is making in renewable energy and exactly what the Recovery Act is all about," said Vice President Biden. "By investing in the infrastructure and technology of the future, we are not only creating jobs today but laying the foundation for long-term growth in the 21st-century economy."

Instead, Solyndra filed for bankruptcy. Later, an Inspector General’s Office, which concluded that Solyndra officials used inaccurate information to mislead the Department of Energy in its application for a $535 million loan guarantee. The report also found that there were shortcomings with the DOE’s process of managing and approving the loan guarantee to Solyndra.”

President Joe Biden's plan will raise energy prices and cost more jobs that may not be energy-related, as we give up our low-cost energy advantage to competitors in China and India not to mention the rest of the world. They say they do not want to ban fracking but make it expensive, legal, and rare.

While President Joe Biden’s more aggressive public posture toward Vladimir Putin his energy policy will give Russia a much-needed economic boost. Still, Biden's tough stance on Putin is having Putin warring that if he gets boxed in it might lead to war. Addressing a virtual meeting of the World Economic Forum (typically held in Davos, Switzerland), the Russian leader said the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing tensions in the international community according to Business Insider. “Putin warned that "international institutions are weakening, regional conflicts are multiplying, [and] the global security system is degrading." He likened the present situation to the 1920s and 1930s when disagreements between global powers spiraled out of control and sparked the bloodiest war in recorded history. "In the 20th century, the failure and inability to centrally resolve such issues resulted in the catastrophic World War II. Of course, nowadays such a heated conflict is not possible, I hope that it is not possible in principle, because it would mean the end of our civilization," Putin said. "But I would like to reiterate, that the situation might develop unpredictably and uncontrollably if we will sit on our hands doing nothing to avoid it," Putin added. "And there is a possibility that we may experience an actual collapse of global development that might result in a fight of all against all."

Yet while the U.S. looks at reducing oil and gas production global demand is rising. U.S. oil production fell to 10.5 million barrels a day last week. Reuters reports that - global oil demand is expected to rise by nearly 7% this year, boosted by quicker vaccine distribution and a better economic outlook, consultancy Wood Mackenzie said on Thursday.

Total liquids demand is expected to average 96.7 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2021, 6.3 million bpd higher than last year when the Covid-19 pandemic caused an unprecedented oil demand shock. “Our short-term forecast assumes vaccine distribution accelerating through 2021 and is underpinned by 5% expected growth in global GDP, according to our macroeconomic outlook, following the global economy’s 5.4% contraction last year,” said the consultancy’s vice president, Ann-Louise Ileum.

Oil is being held back by stock market weakness but will stay strong as supply in the U.S. tightens.  U.S. crude oil stockpiles fell by nearly 10 million barrels last week to their lowest since March, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday according to Reuters. The 9.9million-barrel drop was the biggest draw since July, reduced crude inventories to 476.7 million barrels, according to EIA figures. Analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll were for a 430,000-barrel rise.

It is great we live in a country where you have free speech. Unless of course, you want to use the term China Virus. Biden’s THIRTY-SEVEN executive orders signed in the first week of his presidency states that the term ‘Chinese virus’ or ‘China virus’ is now banned according to Zero-Hedge. You did not hear me say that.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech. But I guess the President can do it by Executive order.