US natural gas production is equivalent to 10M barrels/day of oil at a $23/barrel equivalent. The Obamie Commies don't like it any more than domestic oil production.
According to a study conducted by IHS Global Insight, a ban on hydraulic fracturing would cost the United States $374 billion in lost Gross Domestic Product by 2014, would result in the loss of about 3 million jobs and would require a sixty per cent increase in imported oil and natural gas to make up the difference. Placing restrictions on the fluids that can be used for hydraulic fracturing would be slightly less painful, but painful enough. In that scenario, IHS's study foresees a $172 billion reduction in GDP, 1.4 million jobs lost and a thirty per cent increase in energy imports.
Posted by: ed ||
04/08/2010 10:14 ||
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#1
It should be noted that hydraulic fracturing is already regulated on the state and federal levels. Studying the practice once again will lead to one of two results. Either the EPA will conclude that existing regulatory protections are sufficient, which doesnt seem likely given this administrations record when it comes to environmental issues, or the EPA will deem it necessary to pile another layer of crippling regulations onto an industry that has been one of the few bright spots in a floundering economy.
Just so it's before the next election.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/08/2010 11:08 Comments ||
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#2
It's not only gas production that's at stake. All, or nearly all, new domestic onshore oil production requires the producing zone of each well to be hydraulically fractured in order to release econocmially viable quantities of oil. Ban hydraulic fracturing, or restrict it to the point that it's useless, and domestic onshore exploration will essentially stop.
But fracturing isn't the only target of this new effort. Pay close attention to their carping about the sorts of fluids that are periodically introduced into well bores. The might include, for example (to name a few): hydrogen peroxide (to remove sediments that collect in well bores over time), acids (to remove skins that form on well bores which block the recovery of hydrocarbons), solvents (to remove asphalts / paraffins / etc. from well bores & the nearby formation). Listen closely for the alarmism about the introduction of these sorts of fluids into well bores, that's going to be a key component of the new regulatory thrust. With it they'll finally kill domestic onshore petroleum production, a Holy Grail of the enviro-Nazi left.
#3
Wyoming is about as Red as you can get. And they arent too thrilled with the hydraulic fracturing thats been going on under their feet. Why you ask?
Seems that it ruined their water supply. Humans need to consume water to survive, we arent 98% petroleum, we're 98% water. Gotta figure out a better way folks.....just sayin
#4
Wyoming may modify 'fracking' rules State regulators in Wyoming and industry officials claim there's no single documented incident of drinking water contamination because of hydraulic fracturing in Wyoming. But Jones (attorney for the Wyoming Outdoor Council) contends there's been no way to know because there's not been an adequate attempt to monitor the activity.
And the "proof" is right there with global warming levels of verification:
It must be from fracking because methane, hydrocarbons, lead and copper are not natural materials, esp over a natural gas well.
Posted by: ed ||
04/08/2010 13:04 Comments ||
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#5
The solvents are the only mentioned fluids that would potentially contaminate ground water, and I don't know of any wells that are 6,000 feet deep.
Alcohols or alcohol/solvent hybrids could probably be used if someone put the research into it.
Just sayin.
#6
The second a natural gas well is drilled, all the contaminants that have been in the water supply nearby for the past hundred years suddenly become the natural gas well's responsibility.
Meanwhile, people have been finding where to drill natural gas wells for that time period by finding where the water wells have natural gas mixed in for a similar time period.
#7
I've seen what passes as drinking water from wells in much of Wyoming - fracking might improve it. I'll take my bourbon neat.
Seriously, while fracking 'could' damage useful aquifers it would be hard to do and uncommon. Pretty stringent regulations exist and operational practice improves all the time. And Snowy gets it - that H2S that was in your drinking water forever all of a sudden is the fault of the oil companies once a drilling rig moves into the county.
This will give you a small pop up screen in to which you can enter the name of the radical, and will take you directly to their page, if one exists. I have another one of these bookmarklets I use for Wikipedia all the time.
A fellow media figure asked me about the significance of Moqtada Sadr's supporters carrying out an unofficial referendum to determine who they will support to be the next prime minister in Iraq. The first thing that came to mind was the Quranic verse, "from it we created you and into it we shall send you back," [Surat Taha; Verse 55]. Moqtada Sadr came from "the street" and here he is going back to it; he is not a veteran leader, he is not even qualified [to lead] and the proof is that he is now in Iran on the pretext of completing his [religious] education! Y'gotta admit, the lad grows quickly. He was 22 in 2003. Seven years later he's 38.
Of course, it doesn't matter if the results of the referendum end up in favor of Iyad Allawi or Nuri al Maliki or anyone else, especially as there were no regulations or observers for the referendum. The youth, men and women cast their vote and some of them voted more than once; however, what's more important is the significance of the referendum and its implications. The referendum that the Sadrists carried out contributes to what I call discrediting the concept of leadership, especially as the Sadrist trend won at least around 39 seats in the new parliament in the recent elections, which will make it an influential party on alliances forming the Iraqi government. Therefore, what's the reason for returning to the "street"?
Some might say that the Sadrist trend resorted to the referendum in order to use it as an excuse not to support Nuri al Maliki. Nevertheless, this pretext is unacceptable and it does not reflect a sense of leadership. When the voters have given the Sadrist trend 39 seats in parliament then the leadership of the Sadrist trend must lead and it must take its decisions without belittling the concept of leadership. Even in football we have never seen a referee stopping the match to ask the spectators whether or not what they saw was a penalty!
Therefore, never mind the fact that the referendum the Sadrists carried out had no legitimacy; it also flattens the concept of democracy, as the destiny of the leadership, any leadership, is to lead. We find that in the strongest democracies, and even in non-democratic states, when the people are proud of their leaderships they call them the "founding fathers" and this title is not given to any other leaders whether they are current or former rulers because the founders were the ones who took the most important and difficult decisions that did not appeal to their supporters straight away but over time it became clear that the decisions they made were the right ones. As a result, they, along with their decisions, were considered historical.
The problem that some people are not paying attention to today in our region is that we are witnessing a destructive organized effort to break down our countries from within, just as we are seeing people belittling the concept of leadership; people who raise their voice are being labeled leaders such as Hamas and Khaled Mishal; or those who hide in the basement or behind weapons such as Hezbollah and Hassan Nasrallah, or those who turn to another country [for help] such as Moqtada Sadr; not those who build on, invest in and protect the rights of their people.
Therefore, we must not let the details of the alliances that are being formed in Iraq today to form government take our attention away from the bigger picture of a dangerous shortcoming that does not only harm Iraq but the whole of our region, and we must not deal with it as if it is something acceptable or natural, and that is belittling the concept of leadership and breaking down the Arab state bit by bit and from within. We must remember that the role of a leader is to lead, not to be led.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/08/2010 00:00 ||
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And see if we can get the kid some government-financed dental work, huh?
Imagine you're legendary business guru Jim Collins. Decade ago "Good to Great" and "Built to Last" made him the new Peter Drucker. He's a guy USA Today says would rather be rock climbing than helping companies learn the secrets of making "the leap to greatness."
But that was nine years (and two brutal recessions) ago. Then, shortly after the Iraq War started, he was forced back to the drawing boards, and wrote "How the Mighty Fall." Why? His summary in BusinessWeek explains: "Some of the great companies we'd profiled ... had subsequently lost their positions of prominence," including the Bank of America.
Why do The Mighty fall? "If some of the greatest companies in history can go from iconic to irrelevant, what might we learn by studying their demise, and how can others avoid their fate?" Then fate did intervene, a call came that got his adrenaline flowing faster than hanging high on arocky cliff:
"Would like you to come to West Point to lead a discussion with some great students?" A seminar for cadets? No, "12 generals, 12 CEOs, and 12 social sector leaders ... and they'll really want to dialogue about the topic."
What topic? "America!" America? "What could I possibly teach this esteemed group about America?" A lot. The core issue became clear when the CEO of one of America's top companies pulled him aside: "We've had tremendous success in recent years," but "when you are at the top of the world ... the most powerful nation on Earth ... the most successful company in your industry ... the best player in your game ... your very power and success might cover up the fact that you're already on the path of decline?"
Posted by: ed ||
04/08/2010 09:47 ||
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When life looks like easy street, there's danger at your door.
-J. Garcia
#3
Well, no, we're not going to "fall", but we could very well have a steady and painful multi-decade slide marked by various flashpoints, humiliations and localized debacles.
Like states and municipalities going bankrupt, or pension systems declaring themselves unable to meet their obligations, or regions and states finding themselves unable to either develop or retain a sound corporate tax base due to declining quality of life + unsustainably high tax rates....
If you thought Barry's fiscal insanity was dangerous, take a look at the underreported public pensions debacle. Most of them, across the nation, are underwater. When you have an aging population, that's not just a crisis, it's a crisis of survival.
My $0.02 is that the only thing that will save us is a combination of harsh medicine (including v. high sales taxes and medicare cutbacks) and large-scale migration out of the US by retirees who have the means and cultural wherewithal to retire in low-cost, reasonably stable latin nations like Costa Rica, Guatemala, Belize, Panama etc.
#5
localized debacles -- one of which might be a localized nuclear exchange that knocks down the productivity of Persian Gulf oil wells. This could cripple the entire world economy.
#6
Costa Rica's stable. If the average US retiree in the future will have not more than $20-30k per year to live on, then buying land and a house in Costa Rica for <$50k will become very compelling.
Without exporting a large portion of high-cost, low-income elderly Americans, I don't see any way to manage the actuarial crisis we are going to face.
iiuc, ERISA law mandates that the pensions be paid. The money ain't there now, the markets won't put these pension funds into the black again, the population's aging-- and this will affect tens of MILLIONS of Americans. The situation's going to get FAR worse than it is already.
#7
Taking tens or hundreds of billion of dollars out of tax coffers and pumping it into a foreign economy only accelerates the decline. The first stage in fixing the US is to stop the $700B/year leaving the US economy via stupid trade and energy policies. That will put 7-10 million Americans back to work and go a long way toward erasing endemic deficits.
Posted by: ed ||
04/08/2010 13:25 Comments ||
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#8
So, how's post-industrial society working out for you boys?
#11
50k?!?
Ten years ago Lex, that well has been poisoned with American and Canadian 'dumbass money' for a while now. Panama is heading down the same path and Belize is in the process. In short, there will be nowhere to go in 10 more years that will not be American prices. At least not anywhere you'd want to live. I guess you could live in some inland mountain town that has no flush toilets for that kind of money, but alas, my last point.
I've watched Mexico, Costa Rica and Panama go to dumbass California baby-boomers (present company excluded of course) for the last 10 years, driving up the prices with a "I'll have it at any price!" attitude.
#15
I don't necessarily agree with his five stages of decline. As far as causes go, I'd lay much of it at the door of an out-of-control government. This has been going on for a long time. Medicare and Social Security would have been O.K. if Lyndon Johnson didn't put the lock box funds into the general budget and then use them for the funding of all sorts of other things. That said, it is like a sunk cost at this point; doesn't do much good to look back. The thing that has gotten us into the current mess is subprime loans and derivatives. Seniors paid heavily; they lost 7.5 trillion in retirement funds; hard dollars they had saved over a lifetime of work for retirement.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A fellow media figure asked me about the significance of Moqtada Sadr's supporters carrying out an unofficial referendum to determine who they will support to be the next prime minister in Iraq. The first thing that came to mind was the Quranic verse, "from it we created you and into it we shall send you back," [Surat Taha; Verse 55]. Moqtada Sadr came from "the street" and here he is going back to it; he is not a veteran leader, he is not even qualified [to lead] and the proof is that he is now in Iran on the pretext of completing his [religious] education!
