From time to time we will write more about oil shale and shale gas. The world is not running out of energy. Far from it. This energy will take decades to develope. The United States will be a major player both in the production of its own oil and natural gas but also the manufacturing of the drilling and fracking machinery. The Wall Street Journal has an excellent article on the world wide distribution of natural gas and it is indeed world wide with China possibly having more natural gas than the United States. Our children, if not us, will see the end of OPEC! Soon the United States will be an exporter of natural gas. The "green energy revolution" which we hear so much about but strangely never see will fade into irreverence. Not surprisingly the political class is so far behind the curve on this new energy that they think they're first, but the new Senator from North Dakota, John Hoeven, is a welcome exception. This guy knows banking and he knows energy. There are currently 165 drilling rigs working in North Dakota.
The discoveries of the shale oil and gas reserves is not recent. For years the oil industry has known of the Bakken ,Marcellus ,and Haynesville shale formations but it did not know how to extract the gas and oil until the advent of "fracking". Hydraulic fracturing the, formal term for "fracking" might be the greatest innovation since the world wide web. It would be nice if we would see informative videos like those below on television commercials instead of the drippy renewable drivel put forth by Chevron and friends. When viewing these videos try to think in three dimensions. Not just a single line on a plane but 6 lines running in all directions and joined into one well head.
I''m glad you're so optimistic. There's so much that has to be overcome for this to happen. After what he did today to Israel, it becomes obvious that there is some pretty deliberate nasty stuff goin' on. These people are determined to wreck our government and put our people "in their place."
ReplyDeletethe next step will be taken whether we take it is another matter. actually there isn't much here for the epa to muck up. They made one company quit using deisel fuel in their fracking compounds but they can't stop the drilling on private land without using some endangered species trick. we are probably talking two or three years before we start exporting. it would be nice to use it for transportation fuel instead but this administration is stuck on electric cars. The btu equivalent of gas as opposed to gasoline is about $.75 per gallon.
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