Youngstown, OH: America's Next Energy Boom Town?

T. Boone Pickens: "I've lost my a** in the wind power business"

This quote came moments after Pickens said ""The jobs are in the oil and gas industry in the United States"

Grouch: The American Taxpayers have lost their a**es on their wind energy investments too. They just don't know it.

Women of the Marcellus

Energy in Depth released this video on Women of the Marcellus to show how energy production in the Marcellus Shale is re-uniting and strengthening families across Pennsylvania. "In 2008 alone, natural gas companies paid over $1.8 billion in lease and bonus payments to Pennsylvania landowners many of whom are Pennsylvania farmers."

T. Boone Pickens: Energy Realist

In the history of America, we've never had an energy plan. We don't even realize the resources that we have available to us.

~ T. Boone Pickens

The US Energy Advantage

Anyone want to buy a slightly used taxpayer-financed solar plant?

The Power of Wind Power

High Gas Prices Explained

Hint: it's the Bernank.

North Dakota's Bakken Shale from Space

NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center has produced this image of the upper Midwest with the recent activity in the Bakken Shale highlighted in red. The image is a composite of cloud-free images collected over several years have been combined to make this picture: 1992 is shown in blue, 2000 in green, and 2010 in red. Places that had lots of light in all three years show up bright white (equal amounts of blue, green and red) -- that basically shows established cities and towns (like the Twin Cities) that haven't changed much over that time period. The red color indicates an area of bright lights in 2010 that was dark in 2000 and 1992. Bakken Shale oil-drilling boom got underway a few years ago. Oil is being produced from the Bakken by drilling and hydraulically fracturing long horizontal wells. The rigs and other facilities are highly illuminated at night because drilling is a 24/7 proposition - time is money so there is no 'down time.'

North Dakota is on-track to soon surpass Alaska and Texas as the number one oil producing state and this is going through an economic boom.

Contrast this with production statistics on federal lands recently published from the EIA:

Contrary to what the politicians say, fossil fuel (coal, oil, and natural gas) production on Federal and Indian lands is the lowest in the 9 years EIA reports data and is 6 percent less than in fiscal year 2010. Thank goodness production on private lands is making up the difference.

HT: Carpe Diem

Boomtown Girls

Boomtown Girls from Lucky Dog Filmworks on Vimeo.

There's an energy boom going on in America. It's not green energy. Those companies all go bust when the government subsidies dry up. It's natural gas and North Dakota oil. North Dakota will soon surpass Alaska and Texas to become the top oil producing state in the US. Boom times have hit the Northern Plains. The only thing that is missing now is a TV reality show about the oil fields. This trailer for “Boomtown Girls,” featuring five Williston sisters who work alongside men in the Oil Patch is being marketed to fill this void. The sisters – Kendel, LeAnna, Kelsey, Terrie and Heather – reflect about how their hometown has changed with the latest oil boom. We'll see if they end up on a reality TV channel in the near future.

America's Vast Energy Resources

Environmental scholar Steven Hayward exposes how U.S. energy policies have restricted access to America's vast energy resources. The result? America is less competitive in the world, energy prices are skyrocketing, and the economy is suffering. The United States must open federal lands to exploration and end the regulatory blockade that keeps shale oil and gas out of our reach. To read the North American Energy Inventory study Dr. Hayward's video is based on, go here.

Executive Summary:

• North America is blessed with enough energy supplies to promote and sustain economic growth for many generations. The government’s own reports detail this, and Congress was advised of our energy wealth when the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress released a report showing that the United States’ combined recoverable oil, natural gas, and coal endowment is the largest on Earth.
• The amount of oil that is technically recoverable in the United States is more than 1.4 trillion barrels, with the largest deposits located offshore, in portions of Alaska, and in shale in the Rocky Mountain West. When combined with resources from Canada and Mexico, total recoverable oil in North America exceeds 1.7 trillion barrels.
• That is more than the world has used since the first oil well was drilled over 150 years ago in Titusville, Pennsylvania. To put this in context, Saudi Arabia has about 260 billion barrels of oil in proved reserves. For comparative purposes, the technically recoverable oil in North America could fuel the present needs in the United states of seven billion barrels per year for around 250 years.
• Moreover, it is important to note that that “reserves” estimates are constantly in flux. For example, in 1980, the U.S. had oil reserves of roughly 30 billion barrels. Yet from 1980 through 2010, we produced over 77 billion barrels of oil. In other words, over the last 30 years, we produced over 150 percent of our proved reserves.
• Restrictions in the form of federal bans and leasing combined with declining offerings of lease acreage mean only about 2.2 percent of America’s offshore acreage is currently leased for production.
• Proved reserves of natural gas in the United States and throughout North America are enormous, and the total amount of recoverable natural gas is even more impressive. The EIA estimates that the United States has 272.5 trillion cubic feet of proved reserves of natural gas. The total amount of natural gas that is recoverable in North America is approximately 4.2 quadrillion (4,244 trillion) cubic feet.
• Given that U.S. consumption is currently about 24 trillion cubic feet per, there is enough natural gas in North America to last the United States for over 175 years at current rates of consumption.
• Total supplies of natural gas in North America dwarf those of other countries. The United States, Canada, and Mexico have more technically recoverable natural gas resources than the combined total proved natural gas reserves found in Russia, Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkmenistan.
• With respect to total recoverable resources, however, North America’s combined coal supplies are even more staggering. The United States, Canada, and Mexico have over 497 billion short tons of recoverable coal, or nearly three times as much as Russia, which has the world’s second largest reserves. North America’s recoverable coal resources are bigger than the five largest non-North American countries’ reserves combined (Russia, China, Australia, India, Ukraine).
• North American recoverable coal could provide enough electricity for the United States for about 500 years at current levels of consumption.
• While the US and North America contain enormous energy wealth, US policies have increasingly made exploration, development, production and consumption of that energy more difficult.
• Therefore, a scarcity of good policies, not a scarcity of energy, is responsible for US energy insecurity.

Natural Gas! Duh! Winning! Duh!: Exelon CEO John Rowe on the Energy Wave of the Future

While this isn't the most exciting interview I've ever heard, John Rowe CEO of Exelon, one of the nations leading nuclear power companies, explains why natural gas is the wave of the energy future. The current turmoil in the Middle East is a strong signal that we should be running our cars off of compressed natural gas, which is abundant in the country and cheap.

Natural Gas-- Fuel of the Future

From the fine folks at Carpe Diem, we learn that "more natural gas produced was produced in October - 2,330,551 million cubic feet - than in any previous month in U.S. history."  Natural gas now sells at less than half the price it was five years ago,  and with the vast quantities that are available the Energy Department is predicting lower prices for natural gas and  electricity for the next quarter-century.

Amy Myers Jaffe writes in the Wall Street Journal:

"We've always known the potential of shale; we just didn't have the technology to get to it at a low enough cost. Now new techniques have driven down the price tag—and set the stage for shale gas to become what will be the game-changing resource of the decade.

I have been studying the energy markets for 30 years, and I am convinced that shale gas will revolutionize the industry—and change the world—in the coming decades. It will prevent the rise of any new cartels. It will alter geopolitics. And it will slow the transition to renewable energy."

Grouch: Politicians tend to be backward looking reactionaries who repeatedly fail to recognize the obvious. While they are funneling billions of dollars on the hope that wind power, ethanol, solar, or bio-diesel might be the clean fuel of the future that can power the nation and reduce our dependency on foreign oil the answer lies right below their feet-- at least a hundred year supply of clean burning natural gas that could be used to power cars, electric plants and homes for a very long time while keeping energy dollars here in the US and creating US based jobs.

More than half of Britain's wind farms have been built where there is not enough wind

For those who believe that governments are efficient allocators of capital, we have this story out of the UK.   More than half of Britian's wind farms have been built where there is not enough wind to make them efficient producers of energy.

Europe's largest wind farm, Whitelee, near Glasgow (pictured above), contains 140 turbines but ran at only 25% of capacity last year.  The most anemic project in Britain was Blyth Harbour in Northumberland, where the nine turbines reached a feeble 4.9 per cent of their capacity. This was followed closely by Chelker reservoir in North Yorkshire which operates at only 5.3 per cent of its potential. The ten turbines at Burton Wold in Northamptonshire have been running for just three years, but achieved only 19 per cent capacity. Many theorize that the financial incentives designed to help Britain meet green energy targets are encouraging firms to site their developments badly, where there isn't enough wind to make them economically self-sustaining. Under the controversial Renewable Obligation scheme, British consumers pay £1billion a year in their fuel bills to subsidize the drive towards renewable energy (sound like Cap and Tax to anyone?). Some academics suggest that the full subsidy be restricted to turbines which achieve capacity of 30 per cent or more – managed by just eight of England’s 104 on-shore wind farms last year. Those that fall below 25 per cent should not be eligible for any subsidy (sounds like a case of free market principles merging with government policy trying to produce more desirable results). A further 7,000 sites are planned for the next 12 years to meet European targets on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. This is a cautionary tale for the future of American subsidized renewable energy.


Danish Turbine Failure, when braking mechanism fails in high winds


A success story: New York State's Tug Hill plateau, known for its snow, is gaining fame for its wind. Maple Ridge Wind Farm, which officially opened last year, is the biggest wind energy project in the eastern United States.



MagLev Wind Turbine Concept

Penn & Teller: Hybrids & Nukes (May be Offensive to Some)

This edutainment piece is from the show Bullshit, and it comes with a warning-- many people might find some of the unnecessary antics offensive, and there's question that Penn is an obnoxious pig, which he proves time and time again throughout the video.

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Now a little energy trivia quiz for the readers. These pictures have been making their way around the Internet so some people may already know the answer. Can anyone identify the owners of these two houses?

House #1 
A 20 room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house, all heated by gas. In one month this residence consumes more energy than the average American household does in a year. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2400 per month. In natural gas alone, this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not situated in a Northern or Midwestern 'snow belt' area. It's in the South.


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House #2 
Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university. This house incorporates every 'green' feature current home construction can provide. The house is 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on a high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat-pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground.

The water (usually 67 degrees F) heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas and it consumes one-quarter electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Surrounding flowers and shrubs native to the area enable the property to blend into the surrounding rural landscape.

'Peak Oil' Theory Advocate Matt Simmons Dies

Matt Simmons, a prominent oil investor who argued the world was rapidly approaching peak oil production capacity, died suddenly on Sunday at his home in North Haven, Maine. Simmons, 67 years old, founded Simmons & Co. International, an investment bank that caters to energy companies, in 1974.

More recently, Simmons had retired to devote his time to the Ocean Energy Institute, a group he founded to research and develop energy from wind and tidal sources.

In his 2005 book "Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy," Simmons drew attention to the unreliability of Middle East oil reserves, arguing that the nation's oil reserves were nearing their highest levels of production.

Simmons' views on "peak oil" have long be considered controversial as have his recent statements regarding the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Simmons, who served as an energy advisor to President George W. Bush, asserted earlier this summer, that he expected BP would need to file for bankruptcy protection in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon accident.

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I have included a documentary called "A Crude Awakening" from 2007 that features Simmons, and my own local Congressman Roscoe Bartlett. You'll have to sort out the facts from the propaganda according to your own tastes.

My own personal, unscientific view is that we have not hit peak oil yet in the world, though it is coming within the next 10 - 25 years. Today's efforts to produce energy from solar and wind-power have a ways to go before they can replace oil. To my way of thinking, natural gas is the bridge energy source source to buy time until solar, wind, hydrogen fuel cells and nuclear fusion is ready for mass energy production.

Natural Gas Makes so Much Sense the Politicians Will Never Go For It

I don't agree with Cramer much, but he is right on the money with his thoughts on natural gas. It is the key to American energy independence and reducing the trade deficits in the short and intermediate terms while the technological glitches with renewable sources of energy are being worked out.

America should be running their cars and trucks on natural gas as well as heating homes and producing electricity.  The tepid response of politicians so far is disappointing, but they tend to like complex, expensive solutions that require heavy government subsidies to succeed.  Companies are already beginning to build out a compress natural gas delivery infrastructure for cars and trucks, but this needs to be accelerated.  Honda does make a Civic that runs off of CNG, but it is $5 - $7,000 more costly than its gasoline counterpart.

As oil gets harder and harder to find and extract, and with the disaster in the gulf, its time for American to start taking advantage of one of their great natural resources to cleanly meet their energy needs.  Let's hope that government, for once, will have some foresight and make a major move to champion this strategic American resource.

The Gulf Oil Spill: Day 42

It is now day 42 of the Gulf Oil spill with no end in sight. Neither BP nor the federal government seem to have a solution to stop the leak. The quest for more energy for hungry consumers has pushed the producers into deep water drilling to tap into abundant supplies of oil, and have pushed the envelope on technology. Now with the first major accident in many years, the Gulf ecosystem will be severely damaged, birds and sea life destroyed in the region as well as beaches fouled, and marshes that are the breeding ground for shrimp and crab coated with goo. The economic cost of this accident cannot even be estimated yet, but will be very high and will devastate the watermen of the Gulf coast. One possibility that people should keep in mind as attempt to cap the well fail, is that extreme measures may need to be taken sooner rather than later. One such measure that I haven't heard discussed is to close the well via a large explosion. This has proven successful on a number of above ground leaks, and may be what is eventually required in the gulf. The old Soviet footage below demonstrates a well could be shut off with an underground explosion. Nukes may be a little extreme, but the longer this situation goes on the more extreme measures will be attempted.

The Milken Institute: Energy Security

Total Imports of Petroleum (Top 15 Countries) (Thousand Barrels per Day)
Country	Jan-10	Dec-09	YTD 2010	Jan-09	YTD 2009
CANADA	2,593	2,649	2,593	2,544	2,544
MEXICO	1,131	1,204	1,131	1,430	1,430
NIGERIA	1,013	1,029	1,013	509	509
SAUDI ARABIA	963	893	963	1,362	1,362
VENEZUELA	911	849	911	1,353	1,353
IRAQ	506	325	506	568	568
ALGERIA	498	544	498	720	720
RUSSIA	463	385	463	516	516
BRAZIL	353	184	353	450	450
COLOMBIA	322	231	322	269	269
VIRGIN ISLANDS	308	289	308	367	367
UNITED KINGDOM	282	199	282	147	147
ANGOLA	280	278	280	543	543
ECUADOR	215	86	215	278	278
NORWAY	126	65	126	90	90

Note: The data in the tables above exclude oil imports into the U.S. territories.

HT: http://paul.kedrosky.com

Kill Oil with Natural Gas and Electricity

Peter Huber discusses why we need to reduce our dependence on oil for energy. He suggests that we start using natural gas to fuel automobiles.

I couldn't agree more. The answer is so simple and obvious the politicians will never support it.