U.S. Oil Production Boom
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-11-14/us-oil-production-boom
According to the International Energy Agency U.S. oil and gas production will exceed that of Saudi Arabia in less than seven years. The boom in shale oil extraction is behind this remarkable turnaround. Increased production will spur job growth in some states and will likely lead to an overall improvement in the balance of trade, and it could also set the stage for geopolitical shifts. However, analysts caution the increase won’t usher in the much touted goal of energy independence, nor is it likely to fully cushion us from price volatility. There are environmental concerns as well. Please join us to discuss the implications of stepped up U.S. oil production.
Guests
J. Robinson West
chairman of PFC Energy, an energy consulting firm.
Coral Davenport
energy and environment correspondent for National Journal.
David Goldwyn
president of Goldwyn Global Strategies, and former U.S. State Department special envoy for international energy and assistant secretary of energy.
Michael Brune
executive director of Sierra Club.
Comments
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I just missed the segment but my 2 cents...
What about energy conservation...?
Why is this top never discussed when we talk about energy ?
If we stopped wasting so much energy we would not have to be developing new resources faster than we can say 'Climate Change'
Keystone is a bad idea. Yes it's true British Columbia has rejected coastal access to shippping ...! The environmental degradation in Alberta due to the incredibly energy inefficient Tar Sands is despicable.
The Tar Sands and pipeline are not good for Canada and the Keystone Pipeline is not good for the USA.
I just missed the segment but my 2 cents...
What about energy conservation...?
Why is this top never discussed when we talk about energy ?
If we stopped wasting so much energy we would not have to be developing new resources faster than we can say 'Climate Change'
Keystone is a bad idea. Yes it's true British Columbia has rejected coastal access to shippping ...! The environmental degradation in Alberta due to the incredibly energy inefficient Tar Sands is despicable.
The Tar Sands and pipeline are not good for Canada and the Keystone Pipeline is not good for the USA.
Thanks for heads up about Washington Rally on Sunday!
I prefer a statement I heard several years back.
It was an interview with the CEO of a major oil company (unfortunately I no longer remember the name of the CEO or the company; only that the company ranked about seventh in the world).
He was asked if there is a world oil shortage. His reply was "No".
However, he went on to say that we are running out of easily-recoverable oil. And from now on the cost will continue to climb. So while we will continue to have oil (and I assume, gas) into the future, we can forget about cheap energy.
And now we run into the real problem: what people really want to believe. Human beings traditionally don't like to hear bad news, so we tend to believe those who tell us what we want to hear; not what we should hear.
I'll keep my predictions to myself. They aren't pretty, and most people don't want to believe them anyway.
Coal exports to China are already coming back to bite us.
There have been studies of highland lakes in our National Parks and all these highland lakes were found to have fish with mercury levels too high for human consumption.
What causes this? Coal burning sends mercury into the atmosphere where it floats around for as long as three weeks or more only to drop out of the sky back to the land.
This "hidden" pollution comes from the coal we export to China.
During all the talks about building more sites to export coal from the Pacific Northwest nobody wants to mention this pollution hazard we have been sending out to come back at us for years.
The opponents of protecting the environment are not remarkable for ignoring the preponderance of science. BUT they are remarkable for the vehemence and overwhelming certainty they project. Even the most reserved scientists never make grand proclamations about any scientific "fact". But rank amateurs are willing to slam global warming with religious ferocity.
Whistling past the graveyard is annoying.......eventually the ghosts object to the noise.
There are far more immediate environmental issues (real immediate threats) that involve repairing air, water, and soil than cautious global warming study would imply. Please consider this: What is so great about pollution?
I for one prefer clean air and water to putrid poisons.
@ nose2much: You stated "Coal exports to China are already coming back to bite us." "This "hidden" pollution comes from the coal we export to China.
Spot on...This is why signing the Kyoto treaty was balked at... we knew that the underlying motive for the treaty had nothing to do with saving the environment... it was introduced solely to handicap American manufacturing, by making unatainable environmental regulation standards on the U.S., while China, India and others would be completely ignoring the standards and marching ahead with ramping up dirty manufacturing. You have to follow the money... By exporting coal to China, a country just starting their industrial development, we opened Pandora's box on environmental pollution. There is no such thing as "clean coal technology" in China. The U.S. still put the standards in place, but not because of the Kyoto treaty. We now need China and India to comply with their own original requests.
I just want to say that all this human rhetoric is disturbing and immature. We all know what the right thing to do is. By putting human wants, desires and needs above all the other creatures of this planet, we will be eliminated before this century is out. Karma is a proven force of this universe and universal justice always prevails.
That said, I have some thoughts on how we as a species can solve our problems. 1- stop having babies and get the population back down to under a billion. 2- conserve, whats wrong with sitting on ones butt and doing things that don't consume. 3- stop the corporate greed and stop buying into the myth that they will take care of the planet. 4- political change starts with everyone of us. If we live in the truth and act accordingly we will suceed. 5- Hemp can solve our oil problems, it produces oil, it enhances the soil even in marginal to wastelands, it uses little water, the waste is used to make clothes, rope, ..... I am not talking THC but hemp. 5- We need to grow up, become symboitic, see that other creatures have been living symbiotically for thousands of years. Grow up humans, this is the end.
HonestAbe wrote:
"The opponents of protecting the environment are not remarkable for ignoring the preponderance of science."
Sure they are. I think that Republicans WANTING dirty air and WANTING dirty water is quite remarkable! (Tongue firmly planted in cheek).
BTW, "protecting the environment" and "global warming" and "man made global warming" are all different concepts. You should stop conflating them. It makes you look less than credible.
Pancake Rankin wrote:
"I have two plug-in Prius's and am ashamed of my energy use.
Do you advocate driving your ATV over the faces of hungry children?
Your present indulgent lifestyle has blinded you to environmental inevitabillities, so that you are" hypobolic" in your pollitics I guess."
1. There are many studies showing the worst gas guzzlers are better for the environment than a Prius. Here's one but I can find you several: http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=14304
2. I don't drive an "ATV" - I drive a 4-cylinder, regular car which gets pretty good gas mileage and decent emissions as well. As far as "driving over the faces of hungry children" - that's the hyperbole right there.
3. My "present indulgent lifestyle"? How do you know anything about my lifestyle?
Geez, I'm on the side of change for the better but your attitude towards others certainly isn't helping our cause.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, is booming in the American economy; we should not waste this boom. We should use the wealth to be created by it to move away gradually from fossil fuels. We should focus on the jobs that can be created by this boom in the intermediate term and use the wealth to gained from exports to shift workers to economically sustainable industries gradually.
Funny thing, even the most drug addled addict knows you do the other guys stash first.
As has already been noted, Fossil Fuels are much more than fuel. Oils and gases are raw materials of production.
All this increased production is going to hasten our dependence on those producers we're increasing production to become independent of. What a vicious circle.
And the faster our own stash depletes.
It's almost like there is a segment of the world hell bent on driving us square into a wall.
Only alternative is alternatives and the acceptance that growth can't continue for ever.
Having Wendell Berry on after this panel was a stroke of genius. I highly recommend people listen to that segment. Here's a bit of the gist of it. The man is the last practical man in America.
"The assumption is that the need is great. And the need as I understand it is this: that we need above all, above everything, to keep the motors running in the interest of speed, comfort and convenience. In other words, we don't want to change our habits in those ways. And that we will then sacrifice both the land and the people in order to achieve that.
"My thinking about that starts with the assumption that to do permanent damage to the ecosphere is wrong. Absolutely wrong. And that when these extraction enterprises .... destroy, permanently, parts of the world, that's wrong, there's no excuse for it. And for that reason, I'm not taking anybody seriously who's talking about energy who isn't not talking about rationing."
I am a bit late posting... Sorry! I read the listeners' reactions. I must say that there is much that makes one think. What I find surprising and very frustrating, however, is that, for some, the opportunity to post here seems to be an opportunity to impose a specific point of view. Some try to persuade the rest of us rather than understand the concerns of others. Some want to prove that they are right rather than uncover the truth about a serious problem and surface a workable solution...
As I see it, some (who seem to entertain a running debate between liberals and conservatives) are actually each holding a part of the truth. If you simply tried to understand the other point of view and actively attempted a rejoinder of sorts, you would actually advance the discussion to a novel plane where contradictions are no longer... You would then have reached synthesis (a state of transcending the opposites to a new level of understanding)...
The world faces an enormous ecological dilemma (water, space agency, energy, pollution, etc...) which begs for a response from us... Can we at least agree on that as a starting point to the conversation?
"Sean Patrick Adams, University of Florida
Introduction
The coal industry was a major foundation for American industrialization in the nineteenth century. As a fuel source, coal provided a cheap and efficient source of power for steam engines, furnaces, and forges across the United States. As an economic pursuit, coal spurred technological innovations in mine technology, energy consumption, and transportation. When mine managers brought increasing sophistication to the organization of work in the mines, coal miners responded by organizing into industrial trade unions. The influence of coal was so pervasive in the United States that by the advent of the twentieth century, it became a necessity of everyday life. In an era where smokestacks equaled progress, the smoky air and sooty landscape of industrial America owed a great deal to the growth of the nation's coal industry. By the close of the nineteenth century, many Americans across the nation read about the latest struggle between coal companies and miners by the light of a coal-gas lamp and in the warmth of a coal-fueled furnace, in a house stocked with goods brought to them by coal-fired locomotives. In many ways, this industry served as a major factor of American industrial growth throughout the nineteenth century."
Now let's see what you got, JA.
Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com
I posted a response to this, but it seems to have been removed.
Madame webmaster, care to enlighten us as to why posts other than the post that violates the terms of DR mb are removed? My posts do not contain insults and/or name calling. Why are they removed when they are consistent with DR show guidelines? That amounts to censorship on your part.
The idea that the civil war contributed to Global Warming is laughable at best, ridiculous at least. There's simply no evidence for it. The world is big mchaun. So is the atmostphere. There may have been a rise carbon use, but it was still dwarfed by cow flatulence in terms of gas emissions. I would keep theories like this to yourself, if I were you.
While I am not surprised that J. Robinson West representing the fossil fuels industry was basically against alternative energy and talked about it's problems with cost and not being able to be a base-load energy source I was surprised that Michael Brune from the Sierra club was not better equipped to deal with these accusations. First of course wind and solar energy can act as a base-load just not in the same way. If you think about the area that a single coal power plant provide power to you can see that the comment that the wind is not always blowing near you when you need power is a red haring comment. If you take a large area the odds are good that there is wind blowing to provide power. Second if wind is coupled with solar then this tends to balance each other. Wind tends to blow more at night when the sun is down.
As far as the cost in Europe I'm not really sure what Mr. West is going on about. In Northern Germany they are paying people to turn lights on to keep the cost of electricity from getting to cheap because of wind power.
Windmill Boom Cuts Electricity Prices in Europe:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-04-22/windmill-boom-curbs-electric-po...
Supplying Baseload Power and Reducing Transmission Requirements by
Interconnecting Wind Farms:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/winds/aj07_jamc.pdf
Busting the baseload power myth:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/12/02/3081889.htm