Oil and Warming

Oil andWarming

There is a development in oil supply you should know about: the Bakken formation. It is in the Williston Basin, well known for oil and coal. This particular formation is a sandwitch of dolomite between shale, all three oil bearing, and has been known since about 1953. It has not been very important up to now because it is fairly thin, maximum thickness only about 140 feet, and the rock is not very porous, making it hard to extract oil from it. With oil at $10 per barrel back then, it could not be produced from it. The important thing is the great extent, basically most of North and South Dakota and eastern Montana, as well as extending into Canada. As a result, the total amount of oil in it is huge, amounting to several times the total of all other oil reserves in the U.S. combined, even based upon the lowest estimate.

They now have techniques to tap it, primarily horizontal drilling, which puts thousands of feet of hole in the formation so oil can seep into it fast enough for economical pumping. A recent well has been quite productive, so oil "companies" are moving in and drilling, and if the enviromentalist do not get it declared off limits, or the CO2 alarmists don't block it on the basis of "carbon footprint", we could soon have a large supply coming on line at about $20-40 per barrel. That could push gas prices back down to about $1 per gallon, to the woe of the CO2 crowd, but to the delight of the rest of us, and there is enough to remove our dependance upon foreign oil for some time to come. Then there is still the gulf and ANWR, the oil shales, and methane hydrates, which might get us through until something else can be developed. A much better scheme than the typical government mandate such as California's mandate that by some date (2012 ?) 10 % of cars sold in the state must be zero emmision, or by 2015 hydrogen must be in use as a fuel.
It should be noted that the same technique, horizontal drilling, can allow the oil under ANWR to be removed with wells in only a tiny patch, the rest of ANWR left alone. Even the little patch used for drilling probably won't disturb such wildlife as lives up there in the frozen north by very much. A great deal of concern was expressed for caribou herds beings disrupted by the Alaska pipeline. Turns out they not only were not bothered by it, they actually appreciate it, gathering around it in cold weather to take advantage of the heat it gives off.

What we need is for nothing to block the development of the oil, and also permits to build some badly needed refineries, preferably near centers of demand to reduce the distribution costs of refined product. And of course we need to end the ethanol insanity which is driving food prices up and is accomplishing nothing more than buying votes. Latest estimate I have found of the ethanol subsidy is $10 billion a year. Can't they find cheaper votes?

My big concern right now is this CO2 and global warming nonsense. I'll grant there might be something to it, to the extent it should be looked into, but it is way too early to take draconian measures, and lately I have been finding disturbing things about it and I don't mean the usual "we are all going to die". Granted the atmosperic level has gone up from about 250 ppm to about 380 ppm. This is reproducable fact, the kind I like to deal with. Just go out and measure it. The record from Mauna Kea shows an annual variation with a slow rise for as long as they have be keeping it. Isotopic ratios show rather clearly that most of the increase comes from fossil fuel (having spent so much time locked up under ground, radioactive decay has changed it a bit from that in living plants). Again pretty dependable fact. And CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Granted.
But the global temperature is rising as a result of it and we will all drown or burn up if nothing is done? Come on now!

I know people are interested in catastrophies and the media like to report them and dwell upon them as it sells. Politicians can get votes and gain power by jumping upon the bandwagon. Global warming, or at least climate change is mentioned so often it is now the first explanation suggested for anything unusual. Migratory birds show up a few days earlier; global warming. A draught; climate change. Severe winter; climate change. Few bats; global warming (never mind the population growth in the tropics with a lot of clearing of trees and planting of crops). And so on. But is there real data there? Now I will accept questioning the meaning of data, but outright falsification? Huh uh!

First, has the world temperature actually increased? What is mean by the world temperature? The temperature at Columbia right now is definite, and can be easily measured, and everyone will probably agree upon it. What was the temperature at Columbia yesterday? What do you mean by it? Even if you say average temperature, what do you mean by that? Probably hourly average, that is, take the temperature every hour, add them and divide by the number of hours. Does that really mean much? You could have two days with the same "average" temperature and very different conditions. The high and low and how long it stayed at a temperature, the temperature profile, are also importatnt. Remember, you can easily drown trying to wade a stream where its average depth is only 2 feet.

How do you determine the "world average"? You cant take the temperature everywhere for all times. You have to take what is available and there might be a lot of reporting stations, but they are not everywhere. Some of them may not report very often and thus miss some important swings. Some important locations may not be reported. Are they even reporting all day or just giving the high and low or maybe the noon time temperature? Lot of variables we are not told about. This might be well and good if they are honest, unbiased scientists, but if there is a political motive, these things we are not told may be a bit important.

Consider the typical recording instrument. You don't want the sun shining directly on it, so it is typically placed in a box with louvered sides to let the air flow through. The box is usually painted white, WHEN IT IS INSTALLED. In the U.S., it will probably be repainted from time to time. In other countries, it may never be repainted. Year by year, it gets darker. Is it any wonder the temperature reported keeps rising? Are we told about this?

As if that is not bad enough, someone has reported even more disturbing info. Now I can't verify this, it is just hearsay and anyone can say anything. The main reason it is not accepted in court. Take it for what it is worth. They challenged someone who has been beating the drum for global warming and they went out to look at some of the reporting stations. The very first one had a light bulb (incadescent) on inside "Oh, someone forgot to turn off the light". The next one had a barrel beside it. The barrel was used for burning trash! The next one was at a airport. as they were looking at it, a jet throttled up and they were surrounded by exhaust! Easy to get rising temperatures, but is the globe warming?

They also don't bother to mention that last year dropped the "average" temperature by the total amount seen in the previous decades. Then there is rising sea levels. Again I was not at a lecture I heard about, so it is only hearsay, but a graph of tide records was shown, with fossil fuel usage superimposed on it. I don't know how to draw with this software, so I'll have to describe it. It ran for about the last 70 years. It showed a wiggly line (tide levels) with a straight one (trend) superimposed on it. It ran from 0 up to about 8 inches or centimeters, I've forgotten which. Down below was a curve for each of coal, oil, and gas. They each rose rather rapidly. That clearly showed a relationship between use of fossil fuels and rising sea levels. Gave a good introduction to dire warnings of coastal cities being swamped by the ocean in the near future.

Scared a lot of people. Trouble was, it was only part of the graph. I have seen the whole thing. Before 150 years ago, the data are not reliable and could mainly be disregarded. Starting about 150 years ago, the wiggly line runs up to the present, staying close to the straight line trend for the whole time, not just the last 70 years. And the coal line runs nearly level, very close to the bottom, with the oil and gas lines not starting until shortly before where it was cut off for the lecture. In other words, it shows just the opposite: for 150 years there has been a steady rise in sea level, starting before the use of much fossil fuels and remaining unchanged as usage increased greatly. There is no connection shown! Implying there is, and cutting off the rest of the graph, is dishonest at best. Downright fraud.

Probably the worst example I have run across is the rapid loss of snow and ice in Antarctica. Oh calamity!. The Larsen B ice shelf has melted. All the ice will soon be gone and it will not only kill off the penguins, but will flood coastal cities. Oh woe is us! Well, the ice shelf did break off. They do that occasionally and this was the biggest one ever observed. In the Arctic, ice sheets break off into the sea as they get about to the shore line. Spectacular sight, those big hunks of ice slumping into the sea and throwing up a shower of water. This has been going on for a long long time, but is shown in Algor's movie as evidence of the melting of glaciers. In the Antarctic, the ice is a lot ticker, so slides into the sea until it is finally floating. the line where water reaches under it is called the grounding line. The ice floats out to sea as an ice shelf, and eventually, cracks develop and a big piece separates and floats away. No spectacular spash as they are already floating.

Now the loss of ice and snow. Yes, it is happening, but only on the tip of the peninsula that points toward South America. On the whole of the rest of the contenient, the snow and ice are increasing. Yet this meets the mind set of global warming so has been widely reported. Most of it now is just repeating nonesense. About like the Devil's Triangle books. If you look through a few of them you find they are quoting each other rather than looking at facts. So I can understand people passing it on, but the first ones to warn of the ice and snow melting in Antarctica and spreading pictures of bare rock, were cherry picking their data. They were knowingly being dishonest.

I will allow there might be something to the global warming concerns, but I wont accept there is enough clearly known to do much more than study it now. I am convinced there is a lot of dishonesty involved. Scam comes to mind. Any time someone has to resort to trickery, has to cheat to make a point, I reject them. Heck with global warming. Bring on the fossil fuel. hurray for oil and coal