Category: This is Not Cool

MAGA’s Fighting for a Bygone World

In Other News:
US moves to dominate the global VHS video market once and for all.
Eat shit Beta max!
President Trump promises US taxpayers will reimburse Blockbuster videos for rebuilding video marketing infrastructure, pledging an “All of Government” approach, and the full strength of the US military will be mobilized to enforce and retain market share.

Jigar Shah on Linked In:

China’s energy strategy suggests a different framing—one that looks far more like the long-standing playbook advanced by Amory Lovins and the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI): don’t fight oil directly. Get more out of each barrel through efficiency, electrification, and better system design until demand structurally disappears. When my mentor, Atul Arya, left bp, he did a peak oil demand road show in 2010 with the Society of Automotive Engineers. My friend Arjun Murti finds all of this impossible given that 7 billion in the world don’t enjoy the same energy consumption as the “lucky one billion.” As I have pointed out to him, oil has had decades to accomplish this goal and they really aren’t working very hard on it now.

If China succeeds at achieving their peak oil demand this year, their domestic success will be embraced by other oil importing countries that are looking to shift their oil import dollars into domestic technology investments. Oil demand will never go away, but we are seeing a long-term erosion of oil’s economic relevance.

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Trump Venezuela Policy is Staggering Economic Dumbfuckery

From Financial Times: Venezuelan oil facilities appear to be in advanced stages of decay

“Running the government like a business” is a phrase we have heard ad nauseam from Republicans for decades. That’s why people elected George W Bush.
Remember that other war for oil? No, not that one, the other one. That “cakewalk” that was going to pay for itself with cheaper gas?
How much worse could it be when you elect a guy who managed to bankrupt 6 Casinos?

The administration seems to be promising that US oil companies are going to invest 100s of billions into decrepit oil facilities, to recover oil at a cost that is higher than what the global market is currently paying, and that somebody is going to back some oil tankers up to the dock in Puerto Miranda , load ’em up and bring ’em back to Houston, with no one in the still-intact government of Venezuela raising a question.
And that’s going to lower the price of oil below what is profitable for frackers in the Permian Basin, without impacting employment in that oil patch, and lower gas prices for the rest of consumers, in time for them to show their gratitude in the mid-terms.
Explain it to me like I’m five.

NBC News:

President Donald Trump said he believes the U.S. oil industry could get expanded operations in Venezuela “up and running” in fewer than 18 months.

“I think we can do it in less time than that, but it’ll be a lot of money,” Trump told NBC News in an interview Monday. 

“A tremendous amount of money will have to be spent, and the oil companies will spend it, and then they’ll get reimbursed by us, or through revenue,” he said.

Wall Street Journal:

If successful, the plan could effectively give the U.S. stewardship of most of the oil reserves in the Western Hemisphere, when factoring in deposits in the U.S. and other countries where U.S. companies control production. It could also fulfill two of the administrations’ primary goals: to box Russia and China out of Venezuela and to push energy prices lower for U.S. consumers.

Trump has repeatedly raised the prospect of lowering oil prices to $50 a barrel, his preferred level, two senior administration officials said.

But oil prices are already low, with the U.S. benchmark hovering around $56 a barrel Wednesday, and Trump has struggled to persuade U.S. oil-and-gas producers to crank out more crude and help him accomplish his political goals. Many companies see $50 a barrel as a threshold below which it becomes unprofitable to drill, and a sustained period of low oil prices could decimate the U.S. shale industry, which has been a key backer of the president.

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(Some) Republicans Chafe at Greenland War Talk

Add this to the No-files in courage.
Outgoing Senator Tom Tillis rales against the “stupid” of White House war talk on Greenland.

Below, a Danish official in CNN interview gives a corrective on the history.

Reposting: Greenland by Drone and Chopper – Dark Snow Project

Reposting some overviews of Greenland from Dark Snow Project and research field work over the past decade and a half.
I had the great good fortune to work along side international teams of scientists in Greenland for a number of summers in the past decade and a half. To see it become a toy for the greediest and most ignorant administration in history is worse than painful.

Below, some snapshots from the first Dark Snow Expedition in 2013.

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Venezuela’s Paper Barrels, and What US Taxpayers are Buying

Above, a Bloomberg interview with an international oil trade expert suggests that the estimates of Venezuela’s “vast oil reserves” are predicated on a price of $150/barrel, as opposed to today’s less than $60.
oops.

New York Times:

At issue is not whether capturing President Nicolás Maduro was the right move. Republicans have almost universally cheered Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign on Venezuela and welcomed the military raid that removed Mr. Maduro and his wife and sent them to the United States to face criminal charges.

But many Republicans have tied themselves in knots over the past few days to avoid contradicting or seeming to criticize Mr. Trump while confronting major questions about who should govern Venezuela, whether Washington is pursuing regime change there and how deeply involved the United States should be — and for how long — in shaping the country’s future.

“We are not at war,” Speaker Mike Johnson said on Monday. “We do not have U.S. armed forces in Venezuela, and we are not occupying that country.”

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Trump’s Greed for Greenland Threatens NATO Rupture

BBC report on current US threats to Greenland, Denmark, and NATO allies.

I know you’ll never believe this, but all the talk about the US need for Greenland in terms of national security is bullshit.

New York Times:

Does the United States even need to buy Greenland — or do something more drastic — to accomplish all of Mr. Trump’s goals?

Under a little-known Cold War agreement, the United States already enjoys sweeping military access in Greenland. Right now, the United States has one base in a very remote corner of the island. But the agreement allows it to “construct, install, maintain, and operate” military bases across Greenland, “house personnel” and “control landings, takeoffs, anchorages, moorings, movements, and operation of ships, aircraft, and waterborne craft.”

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Big Oil’s Big Payoff

Mother Jones:

In 2024, Singer, an 81-year-old with a net worth of $6.7 billion, donated $5 million to Make America Great Again Inc., Trump’s Super PAC. He donated tens of millions more in the 2024 cycle to support Trump’s allies, including $37 million to support the election of Republicans to Congress. He also donated an undisclosed amount to fund Trump’s second transition.

This past June, when Trump sought funds to bankroll a primary challenger to Thomas Massie (R-KY), who had raised his ire by supporting the release of the Epstein Files, Singer contributed $1 million, the largest contribution.

Since Trump was first elected in 2016, Singer has met personally with Trump at least four times. “Paul just left and he’s given us his total support,” Trump declared after meeting with Singer at the White House in February 2017. “I want to thank Paul Singer for being here and for coming up to the office. He was a very strong opponent, and now he’s a very strong ally.” (Singer had initially supported Marco Rubio, who is now Trump’s Secretary of State.)

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Taxpayers to Give (Yet Another) Subsidy to Boost US Nuclear

Whether you are pro or anti nuclear, I don’t care, but just stop it with the “renewables need subsidies” bullshit. Renewables are roaring ahead despite the loss of tax credits under the Trump administration.
It’s the nuclear industry that will need a constant and increasing supply of tax funding, starting with jumpstarting the nuclear fuel industry, which has lapsed in this country.
The US is still getting a large portion of fuel for our nuclear industry from foreign sources, as confirmed below by one of Donald Trump’s best friends.

Bloomberg:

The US is awarding $900 million each to Centrus Energy Corp. and two other nuclear fuel makers as part of an effort to restart domestic production and wean the US off of enriched Russian uranium. 

The funding for Maryland-based Centrus will go toward the development of next-generation reactor fuel, according to the Energy Department, which is announcing the awards later Monday. Funding will also go to Peter Thiel-backed advanced nuclear fuel enrichment startup General Matter and to a subsidiary of Orano SA, which is planning an enrichment facility in Tennessee.

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US Gas Exports an Increasing Burden on Energy Prices

The plan is to lock in US natural gas, and the infrastructure to support it, across this country and the rest of the world, to guarantee a captive, dependent group of consumers, who can be squeezed, abused and blackmailed, for decades to come.
This means jacking up exports, pitting US consumers against those in Europe and Asia, who are willing to pay 2x, 5x, or 10x more for the product.

Share.America.gov:

This winter, America’s natural gas keeps millions of Americans warm in their homes, powering everything from heating systems to holiday decorations. Beyond U.S. borders, the United States serves as a reliable, year-round supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG), strengthening global energy security when demand rises, including during the winter months.

Already the world’s largest exporter of LNG, the United States is on track to double its LNG production capacity by 2029. America exports LNG — used for electricity generation, industrial production and to home heating — to 43 countries.

“We stand ready to provide any country with abundant, affordable energy supplies if you need them,” President Trump said of U.S. energy production at the U.N. General Assembly in September. “We’re proudly exporting energy all over the world.”

For each of the first nine months of 2025, U.S. LNG export volumes outpaced the same month in the prior year. In fact, in September, U.S. LNG exports topped 15 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), a 25% increase over September 2024.

Inside Climate News:

During the 2024 campaign, President Donald Trump promised voters that his policies would lower their energy prices by 50 percent, repeating this pledge in speeches in New York, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. “We will cut energy and electricity prices in half within 12 months—not just for businesses but for all Americans and their families,” he wrote in a Newsweek op-ed. 

That hasn’t happened. Nationwide, electricity bills are up 13 percentcompared to last year, with some states facing steeper jumps than others. One of the reasons for those increases is the growing export of liquefied natural gas and a corresponding spike in gas prices, argues a new report from Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization. 

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