When it comes to straight news reporting on the oil and gas industry, nobody outshines the New York Times. The featured front page story in the Sunday Times (12/26) was a deep investigative piece on the Deepwater Horizon blowout. Reporters David Barstow, David Rohde and Stephanie Saul interviewed 21 survivors and pieced together the nine harrowing minutes between the mud flow at the surface of | Read More »
Rig Maintenance Supervisor Bill Masters of Trout, LA lost his job with Seahawk, a shallow water rig contractor, last June 23. After 38 years on the rigs, Masters hoped to go back to work fairly quickly; that’s the way it had always happened before. But not this time. Seahawk has laid off 300 workers. Only three of 20 rigs in its fleet are currently working. | Read More »
President Obama and Senate Democrats have recently floated the idea that it’s time to get rid of the filibuster. So the argument goes, the filibuster is an anti-democratic obstacle that prevents good government and rule by the will of the people. It’s a valid point. Come to think of it, the Senate is chock-full of anti-democratic anachronisms. First off, two senators represent each state, regardless | Read More »
Scaling new heights of moonbattery , Huffington Post columnist Manisha Sinha posits that arguments against Obamacare and other Federal intrusions on states’ rights have their roots in the pro-slavery movement, ca. 1840-60: Long before Tea Party activists and other sundry conservatives detected the ghost of socialism in health care reform and financial regulation legislation, proslavery theorists argued that abolition was akin to socialism. Even though | Read More »
Via correspondent Poe Leggette, the Western Energy Alliance‘s analysis of oil and gas leasing in the RockY Mountain states under the last three administrations: Bear in mind that the Federal government is the primary owner of much of the land in several western states. Combine that with the fact that the March 2010 Lease Sale was the last one we’ll see in the Gulf of | Read More »
Offshore oil and gas wells typically are able to produce at high rates at the beginning of their lives. Reserves are not infinite, so that means a rapid natural rate of decline as reserves deplete. “Reserve replacement” is a big issue; we often say that every day that you don’t replace production in the oilfield means you’re just slowly going out of business. How do | Read More »
Over at The Oil Drum, there’s an insightful article by Robert Rapier, a chemical engineer and blogger: Cellulosic Ethanol Reality Begins to Set In The Oil Drum concerns itself with energy issues of all kinds, but leans toward Peak Oil and alternative fuels. It’s not a site that merely passes through propaganda for the fossil fuel industries. Rapier, who has hands-on experience with cellulosic ethanol, | Read More »
President Obama’s callous indifference to his drilling moratorium’s negative impact on Louisiana is worthy of the “Let Them Eat Cake” Hall of Shame. When pressed by Gov. Bobby Jindal to reconsider the drilling ban and corresponding shallow water permit foot-dragging on the state’s economy, the President responded by suggesting that laid off workers might apply for BP funds, or failing that, unemployment compensation. The President | Read More »
I’ve always been skeptical of the practicality of offshore wind power generation. Designing any kind of structure to stand up to the marine environment is a challenge. Each structure must be designed respecting the particular characteristics of the soil at its site. Not only are offshore turbines heavy, an operating turbine generates a tremendous torque which must be compensated in the structural design. Design is | Read More »
At a Capitol Hill media event staged by Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), Progressive Democrats met with environmental activists to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve. As per usual, these earnest protectors of the flora and fauna of the virgin Alaskan coastal plain did so with the reverence and dignity so commonly associated with Progressive politics. Oh, and did I mention their | Read More »
Turesday night, CNBC featured the broadcast premiere of Haynesville, a documentary film by Gregory Kallenberg. The film tells of the impact of the Haynesville Shale natural gas field on the residents of DeSoto Parish, Louisiana. I’d recommend Haynesville to everyone. According to its boosters, the Haynesville Shale contains some 230 trillion cubic feet of gas. To put that in perspective, that quantity is roughly equal | Read More »
Just a few years ago, you could’ve bought all the land you wanted in DeSoto Parish, LA for $1,000 or so an acre. While oil and gas production was not unknown in the rural northwestern parish, most thought DeSoto’s glory days were gone forever. The Haynesville Shale natural gas play has changed all that. “People went to bed one night poor and woke up the | Read More »
The President’s post-election remarks contained something of an “olive branch” to Congressional Republicans. It came in the form of a broad hint that the Administration might backpedal on its opposition to natural gas development. Obama’s Enthusiasm for Gas Drilling Raises Eyebrows “We’ve got, I think, broad agreement that we’ve got terrific natural gas resources in this country,” Obama said when he was pressed for issues | Read More »
Despite a constant drumbeat of apocalyptic warnings from the press and a “scientific consensus”, only one in three Americans believes that the earth’s climate is warming, and that the warming is caused by humans. In 2006, AGW believers comprised 50% of Americans, and as recently as April 2008 47% percent were in the AGW camp. These are the results of a study released on Wednesday | Read More »
Despite the inefficiency, unreliability and poor economics of wind energy, even the biggest skeptic would acknowledge the appeal of the Bird Cuisinart* to anyone interested in the elusive goal of Energy Independence. After all, the wind is free, right? The wind may be free but the magnets required to make electricity from the whirling blades of a windmill are any thing but free. As we | Read More »
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