1 Windmill (1.5 Mw) = 0.88 BOPD = 5357 cfg/d = .2446 short tons coal = 16,070 sq ft of solar voltaic cells = overall energy consumption of 5.5. Americans per day.

Thus, we can be energy independent on a pure play with either

54,727,727 windmills (at $1.5 million per = 75 trillion)

26,500,000 stripper oil wells (at .5 million per = 13 trillion)

3,311,000 80 bopd wells (at 1.5 million per = 5 trillion)

29,300,000 100 mcfg/d gas wells (at .5 million per = 15 trillion)

Huge amounts of strip mining

2921 sq ft/person or nearly a trillion square feet of photovoltaic cells or 23 million acres (around 1% of US land mass) (at $50 per sq. ft = $50 trillion)

The House GOP revolt--now christened the #dontgo/Don't Go Movement--has been sustained by bloggers and Twitter-ers dispersing information to everyone in the world. So in that spirit, here are some cleaned up notes from the Heritage Foundation's Conservative Blogger Briefing today. I'll be posting later about this here and on TechRepublican, but if these notes can help anyone in furthering this cause, wonderful. Perfect. Just what I'm hoping for.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may have sent the House of Representatives on a five-week vacation, but Republicans have decided to remain in the sweltering Washington, D.C., heat, take to the in-recess House floor and demand that Congress be called back so that Americans can get some relief from high gas prices.

Led by Reps. Mike Pence, R-Ind., Tom Price, R-Ga., and Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., and fully backed by House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, this GOP attack could smack unwary Democrats as hard as the blast of a Texas oil gusher, because what Republicans are demanding is nothing more than a simple up-or-down vote on drilling for domestic oil in a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives.

Pelosi and the House Democratic leadership will not give them a roll call on drilling because she knows what doing so would mean: Enough Democrats would vote with the Republicans to pass legislation opening up offshore areas for oil drilling and to allow access to oil shale in Western states.

That would be public proof that Democrats are out of step with most Americans on how to bring down gasoline prices. And so on Sunday, we heard continual intransigence from Nancy Pelosi regarding having a simple floor vote in which the people's representatives could decide whether to drill or not to drill.

It was "a diversionary tactic," she said, "a decoy . . . not a solution," and so Republicans will just "have to use their imagination as to how they can get a vote . . . ."

Republicans have as an advantage the majority of the American public in support of drilling. Last month, an IBD/TIPP Poll found a broad-based 64% favoring offshore drilling, while 65% want our domestic oil shale made use of. A June Zogby poll found that a 74% majority of Americans in favor of offshore drilling.

Even in one of the bluest of blue liberal states, New Jersey, 56% of residents actually want oil rigs established off the state coast, according to a newly released Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey poll conducted in mid-July. That shows just how deep and widespread pro-drilling sentiment now is.

During the House floor protest, Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., taunted Pelosi about conducting a tour to promote her new book while gas consumers suffer. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, read a letter from a family in his state that "can't afford to both go on vacation and send their son to Boy Scout camp." And so if they can't afford to go on vacation "then neither should Pelosi and the Congress!"

Republicans may even be willing to shut down the government when time comes to vote on the 2009 fiscal year budget resolution.

On the other side of the Capitol, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., is drumming up support from colleagues to demand that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., remove the drilling ban from that budget resolution. Such a ban has been renewed every year since 1982, prohibiting oil and gas leasing on most of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). As of now, Democratic leaders plan to extend it a year.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., now says he can live with "limited" drilling. But listen closely at what he said in his energy speech in Lansing, Mich., on Monday:

He called the inclusion of "a limited amount of new offshore drilling" in new bipartisan legislation a "drawback," adding that "I still don't believe that's a particularly meaningful short-term or long-term solution." But he said "I am willing to consider it if it's necessary to actually pass a comprehensive plan."

"Consider" should not be reported as "support," as the media have done. Moreover, Obama also wants a windfall profit tax — certain to exacerbate high fuel prices by lessening domestic production, as it did under Jimmy Carter.

John McCain and congressional Republicans have the opportunity to expose both Obama and Pelosi as enviro-extremists who refuse to let Americans use the treasure trove of oil that lies beneath our own soil, arctic ice and waters. Whether they take avail of that opportunity could determine both our economic and national security for years to come.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The following letter was just delivered to Speaker Nancy Pelosi on behalf of the American people and the Republican Conference requesting that she reconvene the House and allow a vote to provide relief to Americans suffering because of skyrocketing gas prices: 

An Open Letter to Speaker Pelosi  

On Friday August 1, 2008, at 11:23 a.m., your Democrat majority in the House of Representatives adjourned the House for five full weeks.

House Republicans believe that Congress should not go on vacation until we take action to lower gas and energy prices for struggling American families.

For the last two months we and our House Republican colleagues have used every tool at our disposal to try and get you and your Democrat majority to vote on legislation to lower gas and energy prices by expanding environmentally sound domestic production of oil and natural gas, improving energy efficiency, and encouraging the development of alternative energy technologies.

Many of the proposals we have asked you and your Democrat majority to allow us to vote on are bipartisan proposals that we believe would enjoy the support of a majority of the Members of the Congress. Yet because you and your Democrat Leadership personally oppose these proposals, you are not allowing them to come up for a vote.  This past Sunday, you even told George Stephanopoulos that you will never allow this vote to occur (see transcript on the reverse).

In protest of you and your Democrat majority not allowing an up or down vote on producing more American energy, we and our House Republican colleagues were prepared to take to the floor on Friday, August 1, 2008, and speak to the nation. Rather than allowing that to happen you and your Democrat majority adjourned the House, turned off the television cameras, shut off the microphones and turned out the lights. Nearly 50 House Republicans remained on the floor of the House in defiance speaking to those citizens gathered in the galleries and to the media.

Today we have again returned to the Capitol to continue speaking to the thousands of Americans from all across our country who are visiting the Capitol. We would have preferred if instead we were joined by our colleagues to have a true debate on this issue that ended in an up or down vote. 

 We think it is unconscionable that Congress has gone on vacation before we have addressed the high gas prices that are crippling our economy and hurting millions of families.  We are asking that you reconvene the House from your five-week vacation and schedule a vote on legislation to increase American energy production. Let us be clear, we are not asking for a guaranteed outcome, just the chance to vote.

Signed by: John Boehner, Republican Leader; Roy Blunt, Republican Whip; Adam Putnam, Republican Conference Chairman; Eric Cantor, Chief Deputy Whip; and Members of the House Conference

McCain Needs to Dump the Global Warming Hoax and Follow Inhofe’s Lead

Not every Republican Senator running for re-election this year is in trouble, as a new poll conducted for the Tulsa World shows Oklahoman Jim Inhofe in good position to keep his job for another six years. While Washington may not be popular these days, the Senior Sooner boasts an approval rating of 61%.

The Oklahoma Poll, conducted 7/19-23, surveyed 750 likely voters for a margin of error of +/- 3.6%. Inhofe and State Senator Andrew Rice were tested among a sample made up of 53% self-identified Democrats, 42% self-identified Republicans and 5% independents.

General Election Matchup
Inhofe.........52 (-8 from last, 12/07)
Rice............30 (+11)

McCain........56
Obama........24

The Democratic sample looks high, but voter registration in Oklahoma shows just over 50% signed up as Democrats while 39% checked the Republican box. Inhofe and Rice both easily won their primaries last Tuesday.

James Inhofe has been outspoken on drilling in ANWR, offshore outer banks, and the hoax of global warming for years. This is the way to win big and have coat tails.

By Unlocking Its Energy

Last Monday The Wall Street Journal kicked off a debate on how best to allocate scarce resources to solve the world's problems. Bjorn Lomborg offered a summary of the latest findings from his Copenhagen Consensus project, where he has enlisted some of the world's top economists to address the issue. Over the next few Mondays we'll offer views on the subject from top political and business leaders. How would you spend $10 billion of American resources (either directly or through regulation) over the next four years to help improve the state of the world?

David Klein

The notion that Washington can spend its way out of any problem does not pass what I call "the straight-face test." Rather than parceling taxpayer dollars out to fund a laundry list of government programs that will only paper over the problems facing our nation and the world, let the American people keep the $10 billion. They can use it far more wisely than Congress. Instead, let's unleash America's ingenuity to address the world's challenges and improve the quality of life for every American, as we have throughout our history. And to do that, let's begin by unlocking America's vast energy resources -- from our natural resources like coal, oil and gas to emerging technologies like alternative and renewable fuels.

The fact is, the best, easiest way to boost American investment in alternative fuels and lower our nation's dependence on foreign oil won't cost taxpayers a cent. Democrats in Congress have placed millions of acres of U.S. territory -- far off our coasts, on the remote North Slope of Alaska, and in the Inter-Mountain West -- off limits for energy development. By freeing those domestic resources and increasing the supply of American energy, we can fund development of better solar, wind, biomass and other breakthrough technologies. And House Republicans have a plan to do it -- appropriately titled the American Energy Act, which reflects what we call an "all of the above" energy strategy.

If House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) would allow a vote on our comprehensive energy plan -- a vote House Republicans and hundreds of Americans demanded on the House floor this past Friday, after Congress adjourned, in a historic revolt -- we could create more American jobs, reduce America's energy dependence on nations with ties to global terrorism, cut emissions to promote a healthy environment, and raise our quality of life. And, we could do it without raising taxes -- and even without spending $10 billion. How? From the production of new American energy under our plan.

For example, the Congressional Research Service estimates that at $100 per barrel (far below today's price), producing the estimated 10 billion barrels of oil in Alaska's remote Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would generate $153 billion in new federal revenues. Consider the sums we could generate if we produced new American energy in the Outer Continental Shelf far off our nation's shores, where an estimated 86 billion barrels are locked away, and in the Inter-Mountain West, where some 800 billion barrels of oil is trapped in shale deposits. The possibilities are seemingly endless.

Nothing is impossible with affordable energy and the promise it holds for investments in technology and higher standards of living. Water can be lifted from deep below the earth. The desert can bloom. Crops can grow where they never did before. Electric lights burn at night so that studying, reading and commerce can outlast the sun. None of this would be possible without affordable and available energy.

Reliable energy is among the most liberating forces in the world -- socially, economically and intellectually. In those parts of the world where energy is scarce or too expensive for citizens, daily life is consumed with the drudgery that the absence of energy causes. My goal -- and the goal of every parent -- is to leave our nation and our world in better shape than we inherited it. Key to making that happen is to finally solve the energy crisis America -- and the world -- currently faces. That begins with a vote and real action on an "all of the above" energy plan, not with a laundry list of new, costly Washington programs.

Mr. Boehner, an Ohio Republican, is the House minority leader.

Congr. John Culberson just got off the radio talking about the House Republican revolution. Since CSPAN is off (they are out of session so no transmitting), the only way to keep up with what is going on is via Twitter. If you will recall, Matt Bramanti used Twitter to let us know what was going on at the big conference he attended in Austin.

Here’s how to get in on this and monitor Cuberson’s “Tweets”:

• Go to Twitter.com
• Set up an account (you never have to Tweet or use Twitter in your life, but you do need a FREE account to be able to follow;
• Search for JohnCulberson
• Click on “Follow”