As The Global Energy Crisis Explodes, They Are Warning That Heating Bills Will Be Extremely Painful This Winter

October 13, 2021 by Michael Snyder


Whether you like it or not, a major global energy crisis is here, and it is going to hit all of us right in the wallet. Today, markets for energy are truly global, and that means that price spikes in one part of the planet will inevitably filter elsewhere. For example, a lot of natural gas that is produced in the United States is now heading for Europe, and that is pushing up prices here. As energy supplies get tighter and tighter, power bills are going to go higher and higher. In fact, the U.S. government is now warning American citizens to expect heating bills to rise more than 50 percent this winter. Needless to say, a lot of families out there simply cannot afford that.

For a while, the mainstream media was trying to deny what was happening, but now they are openly using the term “energy crisis” to describe what we are facing. Here is one example…

Far from emerging from the COVID shock awash with fuel, as might be expected after an economic slowdown, the world is entering a new energy crisis the like of which hasn’t been seen since the 1970s.

European and Asian gas prices are at an all-time high, the oil price is at a three-year high, and the price of coal is soaring on the back of energy shortages across China, India and Germany.

Global demand for energy is only going to increase in the months ahead. Summer just ended a few weeks ago, and the middle of winter is still months away.

So if you think that things are bad now, just wait until we get into early 2022.

At this point, even CNN is admitting the truth…

Astronomical increases in natural gas prices. Skyrocketing coal costs. Predictions of $100 oil.

A global energy crunch caused by weather and a resurgence in demand is getting worse, stirring alarm ahead of the winter, when more energy is needed to light and heat homes. Governments around the world are trying to limit the impact on consumers, but acknowledge they may not be able to prevent bills spiking.

So exactly what kind of “spiking” are we talking about?

Well, this week the federal government announced that it is now projecting that heating bills for U.S. consumers will be 54 percent higher this winter…

Get ready to pay sharply higher bills for heating this winter, along with seemingly everything else.

With prices surging worldwide for heating oil, natural gas and other fuels, the U.S. government said Wednesday it expects households to see their heating bills jump as much as 54% compared to last winter.

Actually, if heating bills only go up by 54 percent this winter I think that we will be extremely fortunate.

Many believe that they will shoot up a lot higher than that, because energy prices here in the U.S. have already been going completely nuts…

Natural gas in the United States, for example, has climbed to its highest price since 2014 and is up roughly 90% over the last year. The wholesale price of heating oil, meanwhile, has more than doubled in the last 12 months.

Another reason for the rise is how global the market for fuels has become. In Europe, strong demand and limited supplies have sent natural gas prices up nearly 350% this year. That’s pushing some of the natural gas produced in the United States to head for ships bound for other countries, adding upward pressure on domestic prices as well.

I know what a lot of you are thinking. Millions of families are not going to be able to afford these price increases, and that is going to cause widespread financial hardship.

Even before this new energy crisis erupted, a large portion of the U.S. population had to “forego expenses for basic necessities” in order to pay their power bills…

To make ends meet, families are cutting deeply. Nearly 22% of Americans had to reduce or forego expenses for basic necessities, such as medicine or food, to pay an energy bill in at least one of the last 12 months, according to a September survey by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Despite all of the money that the federal government has thrown at people over the past couple of years, much of the nation is still deeply suffering.

According to another recent survey, close to 40 percent of all U.S. households “have faced serious financial problems” within the past several months…

Nearly 40% of US households have faced serious financial problems, including struggling to afford medical care and food, in the last few months, according to a survey published on Tuesday.

The survey by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health also showed that in those last few months, as the US struggled to contain the infectious Delta coronavirus variant, the percentage of households reporting serious financial problems rose to 59% when they had an income under $50,000 a year.

Normally, a number like that would indicate that unemployment is rampant.

But as I discussed the other day, the U.S. is actually in the midst of an epic shortage of workers right now.

If you want a job, you can go out and get one.

Of course the vast majority of the jobs that are available are very low paying jobs, and rampant inflation is devaluing the wages paid to such workers a little bit more with each passing day.

On Wednesday, we learned that on a year-over-year basis inflation is rising at the fastest pace in 30 years…

Consumer prices increased slightly more than expected in September as food and energy price rises offset declines in used cars, the Labor Department reported Wednesday.

The consumer price index for all items rose 0.4% for the month, compared with the 0.3% Dow Jones estimate. On a year-over-year basis, prices increased 5.4% versus the estimate for 5.3% and the highest since January 1991.

Needless to say, the official government numbers greatly understate the real rate of inflation.

According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, if inflation was still calculated the way it was in 1980, the official rate of inflation would be well into double digits at this point.

And now this new energy crisis is going to make things even worse. Virtually everything that we buy has to be physically transported, and now shipping stuff around the country is going to become significantly more expensive.

In my last two books I specifically warned that inflation would spin wildly out of control, and now it is happening right in front of our eyes.

The experts are telling us that this is going to be a really cold winter, and a lot of American families are going to be forced to make some very difficult choices.

Many will decide to keep their thermostats uncomfortably low, but as long as the power stays on most of us will make it through the coming months okay.

The real danger would come if we start having blackouts like other parts of the globe are already experiencing. As we witnessed in Texas last winter, the loss of power for an extended period of time during a cold stretch can have absolutely disastrous consequences.

This Winter, We Could Potentially Be Facing Simultaneous Shortages Of Oil, Natural Gas, Propane And Coal

October 21, 2021 by Michael Snyder


I realize that the headline that I have chosen for this article may sound a bit wild to many of you, but keep reading because what we are potentially facing is extremely serious. Right now, we are already in the midst of an epic global energy crisis. There have already been significant power outages all over the planet, and prices are spiking at a pace that is absolutely breathtaking. With each passing day, it seems like supplies of oil, natural gas, propane and coal just keep getting tighter, and what is really odd is that it is happening so early in the year. Summer just ended a few weeks ago, and the heart of winter in the northern hemisphere is still several months away. So if things are this bad already, what are things going to look like when we get into January and February?

This morning, I was stunned when I pulled up the Drudge Report and saw that one gas station in California was now selling gasoline for $7.59 a gallon…

Gas keeps getting more and more expensive, especially in California. But perhaps nowhere is it pricier than the remote central coast community of Gorda.

The town’s only gas station is offering regular unleaded for $7.59. Premium is nearly $8.50.

The good news is that a gallon of gasoline is not nearly that high in most of the rest of the nation.

But the bad news is that prices are rising aggressively from coast to coast. As of yesterday, Fox News was reporting that the price of gasoline had risen “for 22 straight days”.

The main reason why prices are skyrocketing is because supplies are starting to get really tight. In fact, it is being reported that the crude oil hub in Cushing, Oklahoma could be “effectively out of crude” in just a few weeks…

In a note predicting the near-term dynamics of the oil market, JPMorgan’s commodity Natasha Kaneva writes that in a world of pervasive nat gas and coal shortages which are forcing the power sector to increasingly turn to oil (boosting demand by 750bkd during winter and drawing inventory by 2.1mmb/d in Nov and Dec), Cushing oil storage – which just dropped to 31.2mm barrels, the lowest since 2018…

… may be just weeks from being “effectively out of crude.” The bank’s conclusion: “if nothing were to change in the Cushing balance over the next two months, we might expect front WTI spreads to spike to record highs—a “super backwardation” scenario.”

Needless to say, we have never seen anything like this happen before.

In such a scenario, how high could the price of oil potentially go?

And if oil price records are being shattered in the months ahead, what will ordinary Americans have to pay when they go to fill up their vehicles?

I have a feeling that we are about to enter uncharted territory.

Meanwhile, one expert recently told Bloomberg that we could soon be facing “propane-market armageddon”…

In the report by Bloomberg, Ang says prices for the first quarter of 2022 are already far above later supplies, saying, “it may indicate players are preparing for propane-market armageddon.” He added that some areas could see outright shortages before winter ends.

To add to the stress, Poynter says some weather forecasts are already calling for a colder than normal winter, thanks to the La Nina effect. Experts call for an 87% chance of the system bringing an early and harsh winter season.

The use of the term “outright shortages” definitely alarms me, because there are millions of Americans that use propane to heat their homes.

If the propane runs out in the middle of the winter, what are those people supposed to do?

On the other side of the globe, a tightening of natural gas supplies has become an enormous problem. According to Global News, natural gas prices in Europe and Asia “have more than tripled” in 2021…

Regional natural gas markets in the United States are seeing prices for this winter surge along with global record highs — suggesting that the energy bills causing headaches in Europe and Asia will hit the world’s top gas producer before long.

Gas prices in Europe and Asia have more than tripled this year, causing manufacturers to curtail activity from Spain to Britain and sparking power crises in China.

In addition to a lack of natural gas, a severe coal shortage has also contributed to the economic chaos that we are witnessing in China at the moment.

Just recently, CNN reported that energy shortages had already spread to 20 different provinces…

Power shortages have spread to 20 provinces in recent weeks, forcing the government to ration electricity during peak hours and some factories to suspend production. These disruptions resulted in a sharp drop in industrial output last month and weighed on the outlook for China’s economy.

India is being hit really hard by the global coal shortage as well.

In fact, we are being told that most of India’s coal plants “have critically low levels of coal inventory”…

Most of India’s coal-fired power plants have critically low levels of coal inventory at a time when the economy is picking up and fueling electricity demand.

Coal accounts for around 70% of India’s electricity generation.

So the truth is that my headline for this article is not over the top at all.

The shortages aren’t something that we have to wait for. They are already here, and they are going to get a lot worse.

Of course this new energy crisis is going to make our global supply chain headaches even more frustrating.

In our economic system, it takes energy to literally do just about anything, and as energy becomes more expensive virtually every form of economic activity will also become more expensive.

That means that all of the stuff that is made for us in Asia and shipped halfway around the planet is going to start costing a lot more.

As toy shortages intensify heading into the holiday season, we are already seeing some resellers pricing toys at nearly 400 percent of their normal levels…

American Girl’s sold-out blonde winter princess doll, which retailed for $250, is now going for up to $999 on platforms such as Mercari and eBay.

The cat-themed Gabby’s Dollhouse, which is all the rage for this year’s preschoolers, has nearly quadrupled on some sites from its original $55 price tag.

This is the “new normal”, and so you might as well get used to it.

I am shocked that things have deteriorated so rapidly, and this new global energy crisis is definitely setting the stage for so many things that I have been warning about.

As global energy supplies get tighter and tighter, all of us will feel the pain.

And the experts are telling us that things are not going to turn around any time soon.

So I hope you have a plan for this winter and beyond, because things are really starting to get crazy out there.

What Will It Mean For The Global Economy When The Price Of Oil Soars To $200 Per Barrel?

October 27, 2021 by Michael Snyder


If you haven’t been paying attention, you will want to start watching the price of oil again. Just before the financial crisis of 2008, the price of oil briefly shot up to 140 dollars a barrel, and experts agree that a very high price for oil would definitely unsettle financial markets now. Unfortunately, it appears to be inevitable that the price of oil will go much higher. Large financial institutions have become extremely hesitant to fund any projects that would “pollute the environment”, and governments around the world have made it extremely difficult for those that produce traditional forms of energy to expand operations. Globally, there is a major push to bring in “the new green economy”, but “the new green economy” cannot provide the energy that we need. Meanwhile, the demand for energy continues to grow all over the globe on a daily basis. What this means is that all forms of traditional energy are going to become a lot more expensive.

At this moment, the price of oil is over 80 dollars per barrel, and many are anticipating that it will soon hit 100 dollars per barrel.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin was recently asked about the price of oil, this is how he responded…

After the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) recently crossed $80 per barrel, Russian President Vladimir Putin was asked whether it could reach $100. He replied “That is quite possible.” Given Russia’s dependence on revenue from its oil exports, he was probably smiling when he said it.

100 dollar oil wouldn’t be much of a shock, but what about 20o dollar oil?

Not too long ago, a team of JPMorgan analysts suggested that we could actually see it happen…

“We believe the evolution of coal prices might reflect supply, demand, cost of capital and energy transitioning issues for all fossil fuels, and it would certainly be possible that oil prices will follow the same pattern (inflation adjusted for oil, that would be in a $150-200/bbl range),” wrote a team of JPMorgan Chase & Co. strategists led by Marko Kolanovic.

Virtually all forms of economic activity require power, and so if the price of oil doubles or triples from current levels that is going to push all prices much higher than they are now.

Some have suggested that we could increasingly switch to other forms of traditional energy if the price of oil becomes too oppressive, but that is not likely to happen due to the widespread shortages that we are witnessing.

For example, supplies of natural gas have never been tighter than they are at this moment. In South Dakota, residents are being warned that their natural gas bills could potentially double this winter…

“The natural gas industry is experiencing shortages in supply while also seeing an increase in overall natural gas demand. As a result, homeowners should expect to see higher natural gas bills this winter,” said PUC Chairman Chris Nelson. “South Dakota’s regulated natural gas utilities, including MidAmerican Energy Co., Montana-Dakota Utilities Co., and NorthWestern Energy, are currently projecting bill increases for residential customers of at least 50% to 100% compared to the bills seen between November and February of the 2020-2021 heating season,” he explained.

The current natural gas shortage is the result of a number of factors. High demand due to increased exports of liquefied natural gas and increased natural gas usage for electric generation along with low production due to hurricanes have led to low storage inventories heading into the peak heating season.

We don’t have enough propane either.

In fact, we are being openly warned of a major “inventory shortage” in the months ahead…

Total US propane stocks concluded the annual summer build season well below the previous five-year average, fueling longstanding concerns among market participants of an inventory shortage coinciding with colder temperatures ushering in the annual increase in winter demand.

In the old days, we could always count on there being plenty of coal, but now that has changed too.

At this point, we are being told that the amount of coal our power plants have on hand is the lowest ever measured “in records going back to 1997”…

Coal stockpiles at U.S. power plants plunged to the lowest in at least 24 years as electricity generators burn the fuel faster than miners can dig it out of the ground.

Inventories fell to 84.3 million tons in August, according to government data released Tuesday. That’s the lowest in records going back to 1997, when Bill Clinton was beginning his second term as U.S. president.

Many Americans don’t realize that coal is still extremely important to our economy.

According to an article posted on Zero Hedge, coal still accounts for about one-fourth of all U.S. power generation…

As of August, about a quarter of all US power generation was derived from coal. As winter approaches, coal-fired power plants will become a more significant percentage of all U.S. power generation.

Power plants are expected to burn 19% more coal this year because soaring natural gas prices have made it uneconomical to produce power. In return, this is forcing generators to burn through coal reserves much quicker and has caught coal producers off guard who cannot bring new coal to the market.

In all my years, I have never seen a time when supplies of oil, natural gas, propane and coal all became extremely tight simultaneously.

If we get to a point where there are severe energy shortages for an extended period of time, that is going to be absolutely disastrous for our economic system.

And of course things are already not going very well for the U.S. economy. In fact, Gallup just found that 68 percent of all Americans believe that the economy is “getting worse”…

The share of Americans saying the economy is getting worse climbed from 63 percent in September to 68 percent in October, Gallup reported Wednesday.

This was not a case of partisan politics. Democrats and Republican views of the economy were essentially unchanged in October, according to Gallup. What happened was the percentage of independents who say economic conditions are getting worse soared nine points from 63 percent to 72 percent.

Needless to say, all of this is perfectly setting the stage for the sort of epic economic meltdown that I have been warning about.

The price of oil will soon hit 100 dollars a barrel, but that won’t be the end of the world.

But when it hits 150 dollars a barrel, Wall Street and the mainstream media will definitely be freaking out.

And when it hits 200 dollars a barrel, it will officially be time to panic about the economy.

The world must have energy to function, and supplies of energy are going to get tighter and tighter in the months ahead.

We have been warned that this energy crunch was coming for decades, and now it is here.

I hope that you are prepared for what is going to happen next, because it isn’t going to be pretty.

Shortages of natural gas means shortages of anhydrous ammonia fertilizer which means further food shortages and sky rocketing prices.

We all need to turn our heat down to 55 or 60 degrees put on more clothes and put more blankets on the beds so we can save money for food and ammo. Screw their shortages. Use wood heat and have a vegetable garden if you can. Only heat one room if you can.

I see where in many parts of the PRK (Peoples Republic of Kalifornia) they are no longer allowing the installation of gas furnaces, water heaters or stoves in new construction or renovation permits as these are greenhouse gas emissions producing fossil fuels appliances.

Look at what happened in Texas last winter… they want that in every state!

The libtards in commieforina need to realize that it takes coil, oil, natural gas, or uranium to make electricity.

Anything is better than electric heat. Even coal or oil is better than electric. You only get electricity as long as they sent it to you. Propane never goes bad. It is in the tank until you use it. You can't buy a tank full of electricity. For back up heat you can buy an infrared propane heater that goes on top of a grill size propane bottle.

There is no energy problem. There's a government problem.

Onward and upward,
airforce

Biden Considering Shutting Down ANOTHER Pipeline Despite Soaring Energy Prices

Biden admin targeting the Line 5 pipeline in the Midwest as America heads into winter.

By Jamie White | INFOWARS.COM Monday, November 08, 2021
The Biden administration is looking into terminating a major Midwest pipeline, despite begging OPEC to ramp up oil production to offset domestic energy prices.

According to reports, Biden is looking into shutting down the Line 5 pipeline and collecting data to determine if shutting down the line will cause a further surge in fuel pricing.

The Line 5 pipeline is part of a network of pipelines that moves 540,000 barrels of petroleum products daily from Ontario, Canada to Escanaba, Michigan.

Line 5 is part of a network that moves crude oil and other petroleum products from western Canada to Escanaba, Michigan and transports approximately 540,000 barrels each day
Following these reports, over a dozen Republican lawmakers penned a letter to Biden warning of the consequences of shuttering Line 5 just before winter hits.

“Every family in Michigan and throughout the Midwest should be deeply troubled by this new report that the Biden Administration is actively exploring shutting down Line 5,” wrote Michigan Rep. Tim Walberg.

“Halting operations of this energy pipeline would hurt our economy and cause home heating costs to rise even higher right as we enter the winter months.”

“This irresponsible action will hurt farmers, businesses, and families. President Biden has already done enough to weaken America’s energy security and international alliances, and the consequences of terminating Line 5 would only heighten these growing challenges,” he added.

Only your patronage to our store is what keeps this beacon of truth lit in the controlled-narrative darkness.
This comes as Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm confirmed Sunday that Americans will be burdened with higher energy costs this year, blaming the higher costs on foreign energy producers.

“This is going to happen. It will be more expensive this year than last year,” Granholm confessed. “We are in a slightly beneficial position, certainly relative to Europe, because their chokehold of natural gas is significant. They’ll pay five times higher.”

“We have the same problem in fuels that the supply chains have, which is that the oil and gas companies are not flipping the switch as quickly as the demand requires,” she added.

Of course, higher energy prices and the gradual deindustrialization of the U.S. is part of the Biden team’s plan.

Last week, on the heels of the globalist COP26 climate summit, Biden’s “climate czar” John Kerry released a blueprint called Long-term Strategy of the United States: Pathways to Net-Zero Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 2050, that outlines the administration’s strategy for phasing out fossil fuels in America.

And remember, Biden totally shut down the Keystone XL pipeline on the first day of his puppet presidency.

This is the Great Reset.