{"id":24554,"date":"2014-12-15T18:46:33","date_gmt":"2014-12-15T23:46:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=24554"},"modified":"2014-12-15T18:46:33","modified_gmt":"2014-12-15T23:46:33","slug":"the-changing-energy-picture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=24554","title":{"rendered":"The Changing Energy Picture"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Washington Free Beacon<\/a> is reporting today that Israel<\/a> has announced the discovery of a major offshore gas field<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The article reports:<\/p>\n

The new field, some\u00a090 miles\u00a0off\u00a0Israel\u2019s coast in the eastern\u00a0Mediterranean<\/a>, holds at least 3.2 trillion cubic feet<\/a> (TCF) of gas, according to a 3D seismic survey. Two larger fields, discovered in 2009 and 2010, have combined reserves of at least 33 trillion cubic feet. These fields are expected to serve the bulk of\u00a0Israel\u2019s gas needs for the coming century. Experts say that further exploration will likely uncover other sizeable fields in\u00a0Israel\u2019s deep offshore waters.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The gas discoveries will have a major impact on\u00a0Israel\u2019s economy and perhaps even on its relations with Arab neighbors.\u00a0Jordan, the Palestinian Authority<\/a>, and\u00a0Egypt\u00a0are all in urgent need of energy supplies and\u00a0Israel\u00a0would be the natural supplier. Israel\u2019s proximity would make the gas significantly cheaper than gas they could acquire from any other source.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This announcement comes at a time when oil prices are falling rapidly and OPEC is attempting to drive American oil out of the market by not curtailing production. This find guarantees Israel’s future energy and will be a definite boost to the Israeli economy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The article concludes:<\/p>\n

The sprouting of gas rigs in the waters off\u00a0Israel\u2019s coast also creates a major security problem. The sites constitute a potential target for missiles fired both by Hamas<\/a> in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah<\/a> in\u00a0Lebanon. Terrorist attacks in explosives-laden speedboats are another concern.\u00a0The Israeli navy has been patrolling the gas fields. It recently asked\u00a0Germany\u00a0to sell it three missile boats to beef up security around the rigs. The boats\u2019 missiles would\u00a0be capable of\u00a0intercepting incoming missiles.<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, both Hamas and Hezbollah have reasons to refrain from attacking\u00a0Israel\u2019s seemingly vulnerable offshore assets. For one, any such attack would undoubtedly induce a massive Israeli response. Beyond that element of deterrence, both Hamas and\u00a0Lebanon\u00a0have reason to believe that gas, perhaps even oil, lies off their shores as well and they would not want Israeli retaliation when they begin to mine their waters.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Israel is scheduled to begin exploratory drilling in 2015. Hopefully, they will be able to proceed without major security issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Washington Free Beacon is reporting today that Israel has announced the discovery of a major offshore gas field. The article reports: The new field, some\u00a090 miles\u00a0off\u00a0Israel\u2019s coast in the eastern\u00a0Mediterranean, holds at least 3.2 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[90,850,86,8522,8523,227],"class_list":["post-24554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-hamas","tag-islamic-terrorism","tag-israel","tag-israeli-economy","tag-israeli-offshore-gas-field","tag-palestinian-national-authority"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24554"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24555,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24554\/revisions\/24555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}