Landman

Tommy Norris (Billy Bob Thornton) managed a small oil company in the Permian Basin of West Texas.  He was a landman, which is another title for an oilman.  The series opened with an unpleasant interaction with drug runners.  Such was just part of the job in the modern world.  His daughter, Ainsley, came to stay with him during Spring Break.  She brought a handsome football player with her, much to Tommy's consternation.  Tommy's son, Cooper, just dropped out of college to work as a "worm" on a crew of four men. A worm was just the new guy.  On Cooper's second day, a derrick exploded from a gas leak, killing the rest of his crew and putting him in the hospital.  So it was that Angela (Ali Larter), Tommy's ex-wife, came to Midland.  Angela decided to stay, which further complicated Tommy's already hectic life.  Monty (Jon Hamm) owned M-Tex Oil and kept in frequent contact with Tommy.  Tommy's housemates, Dale and Nathan, were none too keen on Angela and Ainsley moving into the house.  To make matters worse, Rebecca Falcone (Kayla Wallace) was hired to resolve legal issues.  She and Tommy quickly clashed.

This is a standard drama with all the standard dramatic twists and turns.  What makes it special is that it defends the way the world works.  Where most shows offer lip service or even encourage green energy, this hammers the point that oil runs the world and it isn't changing any time soon.  Tommy's monologues regarding this are the magic ingredient that makes this show fun.  This is the anti-woke show.  Tommy speaks his mind, damn the consequences.  Who else would threaten a cartel thug while bound to a chair with a gun to his head?  This is a man who has no Fs to give.  Let's hope season 2 can keep this up.

Highly recommended.

Buy an Electric Car to Save Money on Gas

"A typical driver will save about $80 a month from not having to pay gas at the pump"

President Joe Biden

That is a good point.  One can save on gas by just not having to buy gas.  However, is it cheaper to buy an electric car?  If you have a working car, getting a new car is automatically much more expensive.  That car payment will be much more than $80 a month.  If you have a working car, don't try to save money by buying an electric car.  I don't think the president was suggesting that you take on a new car payment to save on gas.  However, what if you are in the market for a new car and have a choice between electric or gas?  In that case, the president is encouraging the purchase of an electric vehicle rather than a gas one.  Will that save money?  Let's run some numbers.

Step One: What electric vehicles are available and how much do they cost?  One of my first hits for that was this webpage.

The least expensive car on the list was the Nissan Leaf for $27,400.  It has a base range of 149 miles per charge.  The Tesla Model 3 is listed at $40,690 with a base range of 267 miles.  In both cases, I chose the least expensive model (i.e., no extended range with battery upgrade, etc.).

Step Two: What gas cars are available and how much do they cost?  I went looking for inexpensive cars (we're trying to save money, after all) and found this webpage.

The least expensive car was the Chevrolet Spark for $14,595.  It has a 9 gallon tank and gets 33 mpg, giving it a range of 297 miles.  The most expensive car on this list was the Nissan Sentra at $20,635.  It also gets 33 mpg but has a 12.4 gallon tank, giving it a range of 409 miles.

Step Three.  What is the car payment?  Using myself as the buyer, I found that I could get an interest rate in the range of 2.25% to 3.24%.  Let's split the difference and use 2.75%.  Also, I will go for a 5 year loan.  Let's run the numbers:

Make Model - Monthly Payment

Chevy Spark - $260.63

Nissan Sentra - $368.50

Nissan Leaf - $489.30

Tesla Model 3 - $726.63

The most expensive of the gas cars is over $120 cheaper per month than the most inexpensive electric car.  Both of the gas cars can go further on a tank of gas than either of the electric cars will go on a charge.  Though I fully expect electric cars to eventually overtake gas cars, that time has not yet come.  If you need to buy a new car, the electric will not save you money.  Of course, this calculation might be different in California, where the gas price is dramatically higher.

"I DID THAT!"

I drove down to the local Circle K to fill the tank and, much to my surprise, found a sticker on the pump:

Though I had read reports of these stickers in other states over the last few months, this is the first I have seen one.  From the look of the pump, at least two previous ones had been placed and removed.  Happily, the displayed price was paid by the person before me.  I got away for just under $40.

The Gas Price

In the early 1990s, I started recording when I bought gas on road trips.  Around 2000, that habit expanded to every time I filled the tank.  Thus, I have a long record of gas prices on hand.  Obviously, it only represents the price where I happened to be, not the average price across the nation.  Still, it is a useful metric to see how the price ebbs and flows.  Here is a graph that represents my Honda Civic, purchased in December of 2010.

The prices was on the high side for much of Obama's presidency, but it fell during his last two years in office.  Trump saw a rise for a couple years before a dip in his last year.  Biden has mostly seen an increase in gas prices.  Based on my chart, who oversaw the lowest gas price?

I paid $3.90 just this week and expect I will pay more in the weeks to come.  This chart may give an overall figure, but it isn't entirely fair.  The gas price in Obama's last couple of years could be presumed to carry-on.  Let's break it down by year.

Obama's last two years were better than most of Trump's years.  On the other hand, Trump did achieve energy independence by his final year and it shows.  Trump was a proponent of American energy production, approving pipelines, cheerleading fracking and drilling, and hyping domestic sources.  The US became an energy exporter for the first time in my lifetime during the Trump Administration.  As such, it is not surprising that he had the lowest average cost per gallon during his tenure.  Of course, 78 cents a gallon isn't a lot, is it?  What was my average cost per tank of gas?

Biden has repeatedly announced his hostility toward fossil fuels and, as one of his first acts as president, he canceled the Keystone XL pipeline.  Yes, the Ukraine mess is responsible for some of the recent rise in gas prices, but, as the 2021 average price shows, it had increased dramatically (47%) in 2021, before Putin invaded.

Clearly, the policies in place from 2015 through 2020 provided the best prices for gas.  Let's return to those policies.

Impoverish Russia by Drilling for Oil

The biggest export from Russia is oil and natural gas.  In 2015, that constituted about 60% of exports.  As the price of oil rises, Russia's economic fortunes improve.  The same goes for the Middle East.  Oil producers love when the gas price goes up.   As we know that Russia is enriched by high oil and natural gas prices, it follows that we should try to keep the prices as low as possible.  Heck, if we could drive the price down far enough, we might even make it unprofitable to continue producing oil.  Can we do that?  Yes.  A couple of years ago, the US was a net exporter of energy, for the first time in decades.  Now, we are buying Russian oil!  We are funding Russia.  Why?  Because we canceled the XL Pipeline, we reduced fracking, we're back on the Climate Change bandwagon.  Russia's not on that bandwagon and they are benefiting from our reduced production.  As supply goes down, price goes up.  More profit for Putin.

It has been reported that Russia has funded anti-nuclear and anti-fracking groups in Europe and the US to hamstring competition.  As Europe reduces its ability to provide power for itself, Russia steps in with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.  Wow, look at that.  Russia and the Middle East benefit immensely when the West limits domestic energy production and thus become beholden to these foreign sources who don't give a damn about climate change.

If we are serious about hobbling Russia, we have to stop buying oil from Russia and return to being a net exporter of energy.  We've done it before, very recently, therefore we can do it again.  Drive those oil prices down and Russia won't be able to afford invasions.

Oil Prices Highest in 7 Years

The price for a barrel of oil has broken $90, the highest it has been since 2014.  A year ago, I paid $2.16 a gallon for gas.  Two years ago, it was $1.87.  Today, it is $2.99.  Of course, Texas has some of the lowest gas prices.  It is around $5 a gallon in California.

Back in the days when I watched Bill O'Reilly, he would declare that some nefarious cabal was setting the gas price to screw 'the folks' to benefit fat cats on Wall Street.  He never got around to explaining why the price would go down.  Having studied economics and having a basic understanding of supply and demand, I had no trouble offering reasons why the price rose; this was shortly after Hurricane Katrina.

If Bill really thought a rising gas price benefited the holders of oil stocks - it does - then he should have bought oil stocks to make what he thought would be an obvious profit.  I forget who suggested that at the time, but I took it to heart.  When I started buying individual stocks, one of the first things I did was buy an oil stock.  When the oil price falls, I celebrate filling my car with cheap gas.  When the price soars, I celebrate that I'm a fat cat.  Right now, I'm a fat cat paying for expensive gas.  In 2020, my oil stocks crashed, but I had cheap gas.

Cold War, Part 2?

With the ejection of diplomats/spies in the United States and Russia, there is talk that we are entering a new Cold War.  Unlikely.  Sure, we may not have the best of relations but the US is the world's number 1 economy and Russia ranks about 12th at a paltry 7% of the US economy.  California alone has an economy twice the size of Russia.  Economically, Russia is to the US what Slovakia is to Russia.  South Korea has a bigger economy than Russia!  Embarrassing.  Coal and Petroleum are the big exports for Russia and US fracking has depressed prices.  When ANWR starts producing, the oil market is going to be even more competitive.  We can economically hamstring Russia just by drilling for oil here.  Win-win!  As far as population, Russia is suffering a decline in population and has only 45% as many people as the US.  What about allies?  The US could count on the majority of the EU, Japan, South Korea, India, and probably most of the former Soviet Republics.  Russia can look forward to support from Syria and Iran.  China might adopt Russia as the new North Korea but wouldn't commit itself.  The breakup of the Soviet Union left Russia as a far less formidable country.

 

Putin benefits from memories of the Soviet days and makes great use of the memories of the former super power.

Keystone XL Pipeline

After a 7 year review and only days after Canada requested that the approval process be placed on hold, President Obama rejected the XL pipeline for environmental reasons.  Of course, the best thing for the environment would have been to approve the pipeline.  How could that be?

First, the Canadian oil sands are going to be drilled and burned regardless of our decision.  Therefore, if it is going to be exploited, we should be looking to make it as clean as possible.  With the US rejecting it, Canada will instead have to build a pipeline to British Columbia and ship it to China.  China does not have a record of environmental friendliness; there is a reason so many Chinese are wearing dust masks in the smog-clogged cities.  As the US is shutting coal plants, China is building them at a rapid clip.  Gallon for gallon, the oil would produce a lot less pollution if the US refined and burned it than any other option.  Again, if it is going to be exploited, our best option from an environmentalist viewpoint is to route it to the cleanest option.

 

Second, as the oil sands are going to be used, someone is going to build a pipeline and profit from it.  Either it is going to British Columbia or to Houston.  If it goes to BC, the US gets little if any economic benefit from it.  On the other hand, if it goes to Houston, the United States will build the pipeline and get value-added benefit for transporting and processing it.  Refusing the project does not stop it, it only means the US economy will not benefit from it.

 

Third, there are already half a million miles of oil and natural gas pipelines crisscrossing the United States.  Another two thousand miles is a miniscule increase in the overall network.  Moreover, the safety record of pipelines is much better than the alternative means of transport: trains or trucks.  Over the years, I've seen lots of stories about hazardous spills from overturned trucks and derailed trains but I can't recall any related to broken pipelines.

 

It took 7 years to come to the wrong factual decision.  However, it does satisfy the greens who are a major part of the Democrat base.  This was a political decision, not a practical or rational one.

All of the Above Energy Policy?

President Obama has said that his energy plan is an all of the above strategy. That sounds like a great strategy. We need energy and getting it from whatever sources are available is just what the economy ordered. But some of his policies seem to contradict his words. Let’s look at a few options for energy creation:

Coal: The Environmental Protection Agency has, thanks to the Supreme Court, been given the authority to regulate Carbon Dioxide. Therefore, the EPA ruled that new coal-burning plants must produce 43% less C02 than current plants. That’s quite a hurdle. Keep in mind that as the Chief Executive, President Obama has considerable authority over EPA but seems entirely content with stifling coal plants. As of 2008, Coal accounted for 51% of electrical power generation in the US.

Nuclear: Obama is supportive of nuclear energy. For the first time in more than 3 decades, permits have been approved for the building of nuclear power plants. In 2008, nuclear accounted for 21% of electrical power.

Natural Gas: Obama is supportive of natural gas, having recently issued an executive order to stream-line the various agencies that oversee its production. Hydraulic Fracturing – commonly known as Fracking – has had a dramatic impact on the production of natural gas such that the price is falling as more and more natural gas comes to market. In 2008, natural gas accounted for 17% of electrical power and 2% of transportation.

Oil: Obama is opposed to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. ANWR is the size of South Carolina and the area that would be developed for drilling would require a little more than 3 square miles, 2000 acres out of 19 million. Still, the answer is no. Can’t drill. Then there is the moratorium on off shore drilling virtually anywhere, most notably the Gulf of Mexico since the BP spill. Obama nixed the XL Pipeline that would take Canadian Oil to the gulf coast of Texas. Moreover, though drilling in the US is up, permits on federal lands – where Obama has a say – are down by a third. In Colorado, where oil shale is plentiful, the Bureau of Land Management is hindering efforts to exploit them. If all that isn’t bad enough, Obama has regularly attacked oil companies and threatened windfall profit taxes and revocation of tax write-offs that all companies get. Taken together, this indicates Obama is hostile to oil. As of 2008, Oil accounted for 95% of the transportation energy needs.

Solar: Obama is extremely supportive of solar energy, having made billions of dollars in loan guarantees to a variety of solar companies. Solar accounted for 0.02% of electrical power in 2010, about a hundredth of what wind generated.

Fossil fuels (oil, coal, and gas) supplied 70% of US energy needs in 2010. Nuclear accounted for another 19%. The beloved renewable energies only managed 10%, and hydroelectric was 60% of that with wind turbines a distant second. Burning wood produced more energy than solar. Like it or not, fossil fuels power this economy and will for decades to come.

Though Obama may say all of the above, it is clear by the actions of his administration that he does not mean all of the above. He claims he wants to free us from our reliance on foreign oil but is extremely hostile to domestic production of oil. Switching from a fossil fuel economy is unrealistic so, when the economy finally takes off, look for oil imports to skyrocket and thus make us more dependent on foreign oil.