Image: World Energy 2017-2050: Annual Report
U.S. evolves into coal, gas and oil global energy giant supplying world’s hungry energy markets
David Middleton’s excellent WUWT article addressing the resurgence of the American coal industry as well as the growing role of U.S. natural gas production in creating global gas export markets hits the nail on the head in demonstrating how dominant the U.S. has become in producing and supplying global energy markets at home and abroad with growing demands for fossil fuels.
The IEA agency clearly recognizes the U.S. as the global driver of a huge transformation of the world’s natural gas energy markets.
“The global natural gas market is undergoing a major transformation driven by new supplies coming from the United States to meet growing demand in developing economies and industry surpasses the power sector as the largest source of gas demand growth, according to the IEA’s latest market analysis and five-year forecast on natural gas.
The United States – the world’s largest gas consumer and producer – will account for 40% of the world’s extra gas production to 2022 thanks to the remarkable growth in its domestic shale industry. By 2022, US production will be 890 bcm, or more than a fifth of global gas output.”
The EIA AEO 2017 report shows the incredible climb of U.S. natural gas production brought about by the use of fracking technology that has made America the world’s largest natural gas consumer and producer.
The U.S. now has more natural gas resources identified and available than ever assessed in the last 52 year history that such estimates have been undertaken.
Likewise U.S. oil resource production has climbed dramatically as a result of fracking with American production exceeding that of Saudi Arabia for the last four years.
U.S. oil production and lower prices have resulted in American oil exports climbing to record levels.
While the climate alarmist renewable energy advocacy mainstream media manufactures claim after claim that renewables will dominate global energy markets the reality of world energy use and growth reveals a vastly different picture.
The U.S. has now become and will continue to grow even more so in the future the world’s leading fossil energy producer and exporter to meet the ever increasing demands for economical and useful energy resources needed by the energy hungry nations of the world to achieve growth and prosperity for their peoples.
These are extraordinary and globally significant changes in world energy resource production that the U.S. has created and yet the climate alarmist renewable energy activist mainstream media is absolutely silent on these significant changes and the major and dominant role now played by the U.S. regarding these global markets.
Coal, oil and natural gas meet the great majority of energy needs for global nations today and will continue to do so in the future. U.S. energy policy is on track to support and facilitate our countries role in helping to meet these huge existing and growing global energy market needs.
EIA energy data shows that in 2016 81% of total U.S. energy use was provided by fossil fuels. Even in California the renewable energy hype capital of America total energy use in 2015 was provided 84% by fossil fuels.
It is useful and instructive to compare the energy resource production capabilities of the U.S. with the EU’s renewable energy model of Germany.
An article in the Wall Street Journal exposes that Germany’s energy consumption relies heavily on use of imported fossil fuels and not renewable energy as touted by politicians pushing its Energiewende program.
The Wall Street Journal article notes:
“Germany has developed a reputation as a green-energy superpower, but in many respects it isn’t. Of all the energy used in Germany in 2016, 34% came from oil, 23.6% from coal, 22.7% from natural gas, 7.3% from biomass, 6.9% from nuclear, 2.1% from wind power, and 1.2% from solar. Waste, geothermal and hydropower accounted for the remaining 2%.
All told, Germany derived more than 80% of its total energy consumption from fossil fuels. That’s bad news for a country that depends on imports. About 97% of the oil, 88% of the natural gas and 87% of the hard coal Germans consume are imported.”
The German’s have paid a heavy price for pursuing the government’s Energiewende renewable energy schemes with the WSJ article further noting:
“Though they may find it difficult to swallow, the German people will benefit from Mr. Trump’s efforts to make energy resources accessible and affordable. Germans spent $73.5 billion on imported oil in 2013, when the price of Brent crude averaged approximately$108 a barrel.
Since then, the U.S. embrace of hydraulic fracturing—also known as “fracking”—has resulted in a surge of U.S. crude oil on the world market, causing global oil prices to fall to about $47 per barrel. Some back-of-the-envelope math suggests Germans may now pay $41.5 billion less per year for their oil imports, constituting an average savings of around $1,107 (at current exchange rates) for each of Germany’s 37.5 million households.
Ms. Merkel’s climate and energy policies have caused residential electricity prices in Germany to spike by approximately 47% since 2006, costing the average German household about $380 more a year. The higher prices are largely due to a 10-fold increase in renewable-energy surcharges that guarantee returns for the wind and solar-power industries. These surcharges now make up 23% of German residential electric bills.”
Despite all the claims by government politicians that Germany will lead the way in the EU with reduced emissions because of its focus on costly and unreliable renewables the facts say otherwise as the WSJ article notes:
“The German people are paying far more for their household energy needs under Ms. Merkel, yet they have little to show for it. Since 2009, when Germany began to pursue renewables aggressively, annual CO 2 emissions are down a negligible 0.1%.
Meanwhile, the U.S. experienced year-over-year reductions in CO 2 emissions in 2015 and 2016, and CO 2 emissions have fallen a dramatic 14% since 2005. This has mostly been made possible by fracking—a practice banned in Germany. Fracking has allowed the U.S. natural-gas industry to compete with coal in a way that wasn’t previously possible, lowering costs for everyone.”
Thus Germany the EU model of renewable energy and climate alarmism political correctness has increased energy costs dramatically, failed to reduce emissions anywhere close to what the U.S. has done using free energy market drivers, continues to increase recent emissions because of the need to use coal fuel to meet energy demand, is incredibly dependent on importing the great majority of its energy and fuel from others and even today after spending tens of billions of euros on renewable mandates obtains more than 80% of its energy needs from fossil fuels.
What a scam – and this is what the climate alarmist renewable energy activist propagandist mainstream media want for America.
