'Peak Rock': The ONION Goes Neo-Malthusian (Fixity/depletion curse expands)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 22, 2012 9 Comments

“We are on a collision course to a world without rocks. Only take as many rocks as you absolutely need.”

        – Dr. Victoria  Merrill, author, No Stone Unturned: Methods For Modern Rock Conservation

“Think about it. When was the last time you even saw a boulder?”

         – Henry Kaiser (ge0logist and Onion expert)

The easy oil has been found. There are no more mega-fields. Costs up … prices up … economic stress … crises.

We have such certain knowledge from the smartest guys in many rooms: Paul Ehrlich, John Holdren, Colin Campbell, Jean LaherrèreRichard Heinberg, Chris Skrebowski, Matthew Simmons, …. and Kenneth Deffeyes.

Oil output peaked on December 16, 2005, in case you did not know it, according to geologist Kenneth Deffeyes in his 2010 book When Oil Peaked, available at Amazon in hardcover for one penny (yes, one penny!).…

Continue Reading

Wimp Power: Some Quotations from Wind's Critics

By -- June 21, 2012 12 Comments

Energy and environmental issues need to be addressed using logic and scientific thinking, not emotion, wishes, and depiction.  On a realistic basis, industrial wind energy fails to deliver the goods. By this I mean that windpower:

1) Is not a technically sound solution to provide us electricity, or to meaningfully reduce global warming, and

2) Is not an economically viable source of energy on its own, and

3) Is not environmentally responsible

When you take away the wind lobbyists’ fast-talking shenanigans, their con comes down to these two things: They are telling us what we want to hear, and we’re not really verifying the truth of what they’re saying.

The intellectual conjurers have a clever one-two marketing campaign. First we’re told that the planet is facing imminent catastrophe. And then a salesman comes to our community with a solution!

Continue Reading

"Nothing is more fungible than a good idea" (U.S. as global high-tech oil/gas leader)

By Steve Maley -- June 19, 2012 3 Comments

In 2008, Candidate Obama campaigned against Republican-era high gasoline prices. Now that pump prices are high with a presidential election looming, President Obama disclaims responsibility. “We cannot drill our way to lower gas prices,” he says.

Crude oil is a fungible commodity, the argument goes. So why should we Drill, Baby, Drill when any domestic supply we might add is a relative drop in the bucket? Nice argument, except that it could be used against having any new production. (And U.S. CO2 emissions at the margin are a drop in the bucket, right Mr. President? ) And as the economic revolution of the 1870s taught, economic value and thus prices are set at the margin.

Marginal Economics

The United States is the world’s #3 oil producer. Domestic policy decisions in the U.S.…

Continue Reading

Fighting AGW Religion in North Carolina (sea-level-rise debate gets political)

By -- June 12, 2012 12 Comments

What’s been happening recently in North Carolina (NC) is a microcosm of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) story: politics versus science, ad-hominems versus journalism, evangelists versus pragmatists, etc.

The contentiousness is over one of the main AGW battlefields: sea-level rise (SLR). North Carolina happens to have a large amount of coastline and has become the U.S. epicenter for this issue.

Background

The brief version is that this began several years ago when a state agency, the Coastal Resources Commission (CRC), selected a 20± member “science panel” to do a scientific assessment of the NC SLR situation through 2100. This could have been a very useful project if there had been balance in the personnel selections, and the panel’s assessment adhered to scientific standards. Regrettably, neither happened and the project soon jumped the rails, landing in the political agenda ditch.…

Continue Reading

Wind Wipe Out? (Worst feared at AWEA convention)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 6, 2012 8 Comments Continue Reading

EPA's Flawed Science: From Pretense of Knowledge to Fatal Conceit

By Kathleen Hartnett White -- June 5, 2012 11 Comments Continue Reading

Texas's Solyndra: Will CREZ Launch Cruz to the U.S. Senate? ($7 billion wind transmission project a defining intra-Republican issue)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 1, 2012 6 Comments Continue Reading

Bootleggers, Baptists, and Utility MACT

By -- May 29, 2012 2 Comments Continue Reading

Real World Economics (key to understanding real-world energy)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 18, 2012 No Comments Continue Reading

Star States on the Road to U.S. Hydrocarbon Plenty

By Julia Bell -- May 15, 2012 5 Comments Continue Reading