4/6/2012, 7:48 pm
MEMORANDUM
FROM: Energy Dept Commissar
TO: Party Faithful
RE: Energy Policy Status Report
Comrades, as you all know, unlike the Big-Oil-Loving Climate-Change-Denying opposition, our Party led by Barack Obama favors a "Do Everything" energy policy featuring lots n' lots of green energy investments to suppliment dwindling fossil fuel supplies. Let's have a brief review and see how we're doing on that, shall we?
OIL: The proposed Keystone XL pipeline is dead in the water because of potential environmental damage due to its route thru sensitive wetlands. In addition, the pipeline would have brought Tar Sands oil down from Canada. This type of oil generates a lot of pollution when its produced, something we don't want to encourage. The Canadians will sell it to China instead. No great loss.
STATUS: INACTIVE, FUTURE PRODUCTION UNLIKELY.
~
GAS: Though still a fossil fuel, natural gas is relatively clean. However, our major reserves can only be extracted through the process of hydraulic fracking, which pollutes groundwater, kills birds, fish and marmots and makes tap water taste like cleaning fluid. While we still have hopes for this fuel source, we are not holding our breath. BTW, there is little existing infrastructure for transporting or handling this fuel currently - maybe we shoulda devoted some money towards that in the 2009 Stimulus? Oh, well.
STATUS: MINIMAL ACTIVITY, FUTURE PRODUCTION QUESTIONABLE
COAL: We HATE coal. It's dirty and smelly and smoky. We hate the states that produce it and we hate the states that use it. The president talked in the past about his support for "clean coal" but that was just for public consumption; we all know there is no such thing, it's like having virgin hookers. We are trying as hard as we can to kill coal use in the US.
STATUS: STICK A FORK IN IT, IT'S TOAST
CORN ETHANOL: Bad optics...mumble, mumble.... making fuel from food.... mumble, mumble.... world grain prices rising... mumble, mumble....
STATUS: PHASING OUT PROGRAM quietly
NUCLEAR: Nuclear is very clean environmentally but when there's an earthquake and/or a tsunami, it causes more environmental damage in three hours than all other fuels combined do in 300 years. Europe is still reeling from the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown. There hasn't been a new nuclear plant permitted in this country since The China Syndrome premiered, and that is unlikely to change as long as Jane is a big campaign donor.
STATUS: ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN (AND EASTERN) FRONT
WIND: Wind used to be our power source of choice until we found out the rapidly rotating blades chopped up birds and bats like a buzzsaw on meth. On top of that, we realized the wind does not always blow all the time at the right speed (sometimes it blows waaaay too hard and we have to brake the windmills else they'd take off into the air like a presidential helicopter on its way to a golf course.) Then there's high-profile people like our late, dear friend Teddy who thought the farms looked like shit. The worst part is the wind farms end up requiring conventionally-fueled power plants as backups making the energy cost much more while being just as environmentally unfriendly as fossil-fuel only plants.
STATUS: CUTTING BACK FOR NOW, STILL HAVE HIGH HOPES FOR FUTURE... MAYBE... POSSIBLY...
SOLAR: The crown jewel of our energy policy has been hit by a few high-profile bankruptcies in our investment program as well as the unforseen consequence that the panels don't generate much electricity when the sun isn't shining (who knew?) Now, it appears some new hurdles will be springing up as the solar panel arrays may impinge on the habitats of some species of plants and animals we never heard of before. It's not easy being green.
STATUS: UMMM... WE'LL GET BACK TO YOU ON THIS
BIOFUELS: Check back in 20 or 30 years.
STATUS: IN PROGRESS... SOMEDAY.
SUMMARY: Despite our best intentions, energy prices continue to rise. We believe this is the fault of Wall Street speculators, greedy oil companies and George Bush. Unfortunately, a Democrat president can do nothing about high energy prices so the White House has decided we should shift our focus and attention to pressing important issues like the GOP War on Women and the Trayvon Martin case. The DOE will shortly be soliciting papers exploring the connection between lack of free government-supplied contraceptives and high gas prices (i.e. Womyn use more gas driving to Target to buy cheap birth contol pills than they would if HHS sent the pills to them thru the mail, thus driving up pump prices) and the effect that white hispanics firing off guns has on reducing solar panel efficiency due to clouds of barrel smoke reducing the amount of sunlight hitting the panels. Thank you.
FROM: Energy Dept Commissar
TO: Party Faithful
RE: Energy Policy Status Report
Comrades, as you all know, unlike the Big-Oil-Loving Climate-Change-Denying opposition, our Party led by Barack Obama favors a "Do Everything" energy policy featuring lots n' lots of green energy investments to suppliment dwindling fossil fuel supplies. Let's have a brief review and see how we're doing on that, shall we?
OIL: The proposed Keystone XL pipeline is dead in the water because of potential environmental damage due to its route thru sensitive wetlands. In addition, the pipeline would have brought Tar Sands oil down from Canada. This type of oil generates a lot of pollution when its produced, something we don't want to encourage. The Canadians will sell it to China instead. No great loss.
STATUS: INACTIVE, FUTURE PRODUCTION UNLIKELY.
~
GAS: Though still a fossil fuel, natural gas is relatively clean. However, our major reserves can only be extracted through the process of hydraulic fracking, which pollutes groundwater, kills birds, fish and marmots and makes tap water taste like cleaning fluid. While we still have hopes for this fuel source, we are not holding our breath. BTW, there is little existing infrastructure for transporting or handling this fuel currently - maybe we shoulda devoted some money towards that in the 2009 Stimulus? Oh, well.
STATUS: MINIMAL ACTIVITY, FUTURE PRODUCTION QUESTIONABLE
COAL: We HATE coal. It's dirty and smelly and smoky. We hate the states that produce it and we hate the states that use it. The president talked in the past about his support for "clean coal" but that was just for public consumption; we all know there is no such thing, it's like having virgin hookers. We are trying as hard as we can to kill coal use in the US.
STATUS: STICK A FORK IN IT, IT'S TOAST
CORN ETHANOL: Bad optics...mumble, mumble.... making fuel from food.... mumble, mumble.... world grain prices rising... mumble, mumble....
STATUS: PHASING OUT PROGRAM quietly
NUCLEAR: Nuclear is very clean environmentally but when there's an earthquake and/or a tsunami, it causes more environmental damage in three hours than all other fuels combined do in 300 years. Europe is still reeling from the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown. There hasn't been a new nuclear plant permitted in this country since The China Syndrome premiered, and that is unlikely to change as long as Jane is a big campaign donor.
STATUS: ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN (AND EASTERN) FRONT
WIND: Wind used to be our power source of choice until we found out the rapidly rotating blades chopped up birds and bats like a buzzsaw on meth. On top of that, we realized the wind does not always blow all the time at the right speed (sometimes it blows waaaay too hard and we have to brake the windmills else they'd take off into the air like a presidential helicopter on its way to a golf course.) Then there's high-profile people like our late, dear friend Teddy who thought the farms looked like shit. The worst part is the wind farms end up requiring conventionally-fueled power plants as backups making the energy cost much more while being just as environmentally unfriendly as fossil-fuel only plants.
STATUS: CUTTING BACK FOR NOW, STILL HAVE HIGH HOPES FOR FUTURE... MAYBE... POSSIBLY...
SOLAR: The crown jewel of our energy policy has been hit by a few high-profile bankruptcies in our investment program as well as the unforseen consequence that the panels don't generate much electricity when the sun isn't shining (who knew?) Now, it appears some new hurdles will be springing up as the solar panel arrays may impinge on the habitats of some species of plants and animals we never heard of before. It's not easy being green.
STATUS: UMMM... WE'LL GET BACK TO YOU ON THIS
BIOFUELS: Check back in 20 or 30 years.
STATUS: IN PROGRESS... SOMEDAY.
SUMMARY: Despite our best intentions, energy prices continue to rise. We believe this is the fault of Wall Street speculators, greedy oil companies and George Bush. Unfortunately, a Democrat president can do nothing about high energy prices so the White House has decided we should shift our focus and attention to pressing important issues like the GOP War on Women and the Trayvon Martin case. The DOE will shortly be soliciting papers exploring the connection between lack of free government-supplied contraceptives and high gas prices (i.e. Womyn use more gas driving to Target to buy cheap birth contol pills than they would if HHS sent the pills to them thru the mail, thus driving up pump prices) and the effect that white hispanics firing off guns has on reducing solar panel efficiency due to clouds of barrel smoke reducing the amount of sunlight hitting the panels. Thank you.
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