Gadgetory

hello now you can fall asleep while we talk about energy okay it's a choice between sharing in this great energy well or sharing in the poverty promised by Hillary Clinton on May 26 Donald Trump told a crowd in North Dakota about his energy plans for the u.s. and the speech didn't make any sense and Hillary cat shut down the mines she could really shut down our whole country and your business will be permanently in many cases permanently ruined Trump's own energy plan on the other hand will create jobs and trillions of dollars of wealth despite what Trump says it's not clear at all how he'll do that that's because Trump didn't release the policy paper that explained what he'll do about climate and energy something that Clinton has done because of this practically every expert I spoke with had to tell me first that figuring out exactly what Trump plans to do is nearly impossible still there's some meat in Trump's speech to dissect so here's a list of the things that Trump said that just don't hold up number one Trump thinks making the u.s. energy independent would be good for the economy under my presidency we'll accomplish a complete American energy independence complete complete for most people being energy independent means relying solely on domestic production to power the US but since Trump also called for the renewal of the Keystone XL pipeline project a project that would bring Canadian oil into the u.s. he clearly doesn't actually want to cut out all foreign oil sources so let's just operate under the assumption that Trump wants to stop importing oil from countries outside North America so what's wrong with the whole let's make America energy independent thing for one thing the u.s. is the largest oil producer in the world so even though Trump painted the u.s. the country that's trapped under the weight of foreign oil markets Americans are actually doing pretty well for themselves but that's not all relying on a single source of energy the US has own supply is risky if something were to happen like a devastating hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico then the US wouldn't have other reliable sources to turn to so really maintaining multiple sources of oil is a good thing because it protects the economy from unexpected shocks in the market number two Trump thinks of windfarms kill more than 1 million birds each year while the administration fast-tracked wind projects that kill more than a million birds a year far more than a million words I have to tell you farm boy it's not clear where that number comes from but it's inaccurate in 2014 researchers estimated that three hundred and sixty-eight thousand birds are killed each year when they hit wind turbines and the Fish and Wildlife Service says that wind turbines kill somewhere between a hundred and forty thousand and five hundred and seventy three thousand birds each year but if you look at Trump's other positions that statement becomes downright silly by some estimates coal mining the industry that Trump wants to revive kills close to eight million birds each year an oil and gas kills between 500,000 and 1 million birds so claiming that wind turbines are killing American birds is ridiculous in comparison number 3 Trump thinks environmental regulations are killing the coal industry regulations that shut down hundreds of coal-fired power plants and block the construction of new ones how stupid is that environmental regulations like restrictions on federal land use have had an effect on the coal industry but what Trump doesn't mention here is that the regulatory impacts are nothing compared to the effect that the natural gas industry has had on energy production in the u.s. the truth is that natural gas is a lot cheaper right now so coal is being left behind and that means that bringing back coal would probably have an adverse effect on natural gas production but that's not even the weirdest part of Trump's position on coal in his speech Trump referred to using untapped reserves of natural gas on federal lands which is clearly a reference to fracking but if Trump removes the regulations that prevent fracking on federal lands that would probably lower the cost of natural gas even further and more coal workers would lose their jobs number four Trump thinks the Paris climate agreement gives foreign bureaucrats control over how much energy the u.s. consumes so he wants to cancel it President Obama entered the United States into the Paris climate Accord unilaterally and without the permission of Congress so far and bureaucrats are going to be controlling what we're using and what we're doing on our land in our country no way no way the Paris climate agreement definitely doesn't give foreign bureaucrats control over how much energy the US uses the agreement clearly states that countries can determine their own plans for cutting emissions as for canceling the agreement the US doesn't have the power to make that happen so far more than 190 countries have approved the agreement but if Trump becomes president he might be able to pull the u.s. out of the agreement before it's ratified backing out now however would be catastrophic both for the world's climate and for the u.s. as global reputation number five Trump thinks the oil and gas industry employs way more people than it actually does the oil and natural gas industry supports 10 million high-paying American jobs and create another 400,000 new jobs per year despite what Trump says the oil and gas industry isn't a big player when it comes to jobs in the u.s. in January 2016 181 thousand workers were directly employed in oil and gas extraction while last year the coal industry employed another 69,000 number six Trump didn't mention climate change but his denial shines through the closest the Trump campaign came to mentioning climate change in his energy speech was this a jump administration will focus on real environmental challenges not the phony ones that we've been looking at the use of the word phony is important because Trump himself is a well-documented climate change denier list and conspiracy theorist see he doesn't just think the climate change is fake he also thinks it's a hoax orchestrated by the Chinese so failing to mention climate change might actually be a strategic move for him diving into that subject would have turned an already terrible speech into a total farce the point is Trump doesn't really seem to understand the intricacies of energy and environmental policy in u.s. during the month of May alone we learned that Trump wants to kill California smelt but save birds from wind turbines he's also fine with denying climate change publicly while citing it as a reason to save his Irish Golf Course and when he's dealing with fossil fuels it's totally fine to expand fracking while somehow reviving the coal industry the contradictions are so abundant that it's kind of hard to keep track of course given how often he's changed his mind over the years each of these positions could be entirely different tomorrow no no no no you'reyou're just no you're wrong you're so wrong about this like no no no my dear sir