This Ain’t California Regulators First Rodeo!

Sometimes, it is hard to imagine just how stupid California legislators and regulators can be.

If you recall, for 68 years there was an oil facility in Nipomo, known as the Santa Maria Refinery, that treated oil produced from the Santa Maria valley received by pipeline. After treatment there, another pipeline sent the semi-refined oil to the Bay area to the Phillips Rodeo facility for further refinement.

Well, the Santa Maria refinery was shut down in 2023 because the Rodeo facility switched production to renewable fuels exclusively to satisfy the demands of the extremists who want to shut down the California oil industry entirely.

The defacto closure of this facility for oil production, among other refinery closures, is the reason gasoline prices are so high in California. Furthermore, because Santa Barbara County wouldn’t recognize the right of oil producers to truck their product because the pipeline was no longer available, these producers have been forced to shut down, meaning even less oil is available to other refiners.

Well, here is the rest of the story. That facility in the Bay area, that switched to the production of biofuels only, is now facing a state mandated cap (20%) on the production of diesel and aviation fuels made from soybeans. This is hurting farmers in the Mid-West and it is eliminating one of the major (50-55%) feed stocks for the biofuels. And the loss of these fuels will result in California importing refined gasoline from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East to make up the difference.

You couldn’t make up a story this stupid no matter how hard you tried. What’s not to love unless you are an idiotic regulator in the state of California?

Ironically, the Rodeo facility is so old it previously produced kerosene from whale oil back in 1896. Hence, switching to fossil fuels back then saved the whales!  The same thing happened on the current site of UCSB back in the day. A whaling station was succeeded by an asphaltum (natural asphalt).  In the 1890s, asphaltum was mined from a site at the northwestern corner of the lagoon wetlands. The ore body was a large, molasses like deposit a few feet below ground, later mined by sinking shafts and horizontal drift tunnels down to 550 feet.  See the rich history here about the Goleta Asphalt Mine.

What caused the plant to close?  Today, asphalt concrete is almost exclusively made from crude oil refined into bitumen, mixed with aggregates like gravel and sand. And we still rely on it nearly exclusively to pave our roads. Hence, the war on oil is forcing us to not only import refined gasoline but will soon force us to also import the oil to make asphalt.

Of course, we must also mention the poke in the eye of the local leaders and residents who want nothing to do with oil and gas, as natural seeps off our coast pollute the ocean and our shores and generate the single largest source of emissions in our county! Only drilling relieves the pressure, but what does that mean to the oblivious who refuse to see the obvious?

One more thing on this topic. While our county and our state are still in climate change Jihad mode, much of the rest of the world have cooled their jets, so to speak. Environmental zealot, Bill Gates, who wants us to consume bugs instead of beef as a source for a protein-rich diet, has somehow had an epiphany about the so-called existential threat to mankind from climate change. He now admits there is no existential threat and that we as a society should use our time, energy, and money to address more pressing needs.

Gates is not alone. The UN Climate panel recently admitted that their most extreme prognostications were nothing but hot air. And even Black Rock CEO Larry Fink, who was trying to force ESG (enviro-social-governance) down the throats of the investors in his $14 trillion behemoth fund, now makes the following claim, “For several years, I’ve argued for energy pragmatism. Meeting rising demand will require expanding supply across oil and gas, in addition to renewables, storage, nuclear, and the grid. The goal is not to favor one technology over another.”

What caused these folks to come to their senses? Data centers and their massive power requirements that can’t be supplied by wind and solar! I am calling their epiphanies a data center repentance. The question is when will California political leaders, including those on the Central Coast, get some religion and some honest pragmatism?