Sierra Club Speaks With Forked Tongue

So the Sierra Club is confused and promoting nonsense?  That is nothing new, they've been doing it for years (like pushing the myth of man-caused global warming down our throats).

Peter

 

Key Democrats To Sierra Club: You’re Wrong About Natural Gas

July 24th, 2012 sweeden Posted in Uncategorized |

By Julia Bell, Researcher, Energy in Depth
As a fuel source, natural gas represents a rare combination of benefits: affordable, abundant, and clean. The White House has acknowledged this on several occasions, touting also the enormous job creation potential that responsible natural gas development can deliver.

But for some, denying the facts about natural gas has become a profitable enterprise. The most notable example? The Sierra Club, which recently launched its “Beyond Natural Gas” campaign to stop development of this important source of energy.

 Ironically, it was also the Sierra Club that was touting the environmental benefits of natural gas just a few short years ago, back when natural gas was expensive and considered in short supply – we’ll let our readers extrapolate the meaning of that.

Nonetheless, the facts are still the facts, and it’s telling that the Sierra Club’s new efforts against natural gas not only butt heads with well-established scientific facts about the processes used to extract it, but also with folks that they used to consider their allies – including President Barack Obama, whom the Sierra Club has cheerfully endorsed for reelection.

The United Nations has even pointed out that expanded natural gas use can help the world’s poor and foster a cleaner global environment.

And just this week, the Sierra Club received even more pushback for its activism against natural gas, this time from US Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and US Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
Discussing specifically the Sierra Club’s anti-natural gas campaign, Rep. Markey delivered a fairly clear rebuke: “I think environmentalists should want natural gas on the table as an option,” Markey said, adding later that he thinks it would “be wise for us to not take natural gas off the table.”
When Sen. Wyden was asked about the Sierra Club’s “Beyond Natural Gas” campaign, he issued a similarly unequivocal rejection: “This is what I tell environmental folks: natural gas is really important to a lot of renewables, solar and wind, ensuring that option is out there.”

In describing the environmental benefits, Wyden added, “Natural gas is the cleanest of the fossil fuels, so you start with that as your basic proposition.”

So for those keeping score at home, those acknowledging the safety and benefits of natural gas development include President Obama, the US Environmental Protection Agency, the US Department of Energy, state regulators from across the country, independent experts from respected universities, and now even prominent members of Congress who are widely recognized for their work on environmental issues. Heck, even a study funded by the Sierra Club found natural gas to be a comparatively clean source of energy.

On the other side? Hollywood, Josh Fox, and the Sierra Club.

Gee, I wonder who we should believe?

http://blogs.epmag.com/guests/2012/07/24/key-democrats-to-sierra-club-you%e2%80%99re-wrong-about-natural-gas/?spMailingID=4545580&spUserID=MTUxNzUzNDk0ODgS1&spJobID=49152564&spReportId=NDkxNTI1NjQS1

Shale......The Game Changer?

Shale Could Become Game-Changing Catalyst For US

http://www.epmag.com/Exploration/Shale-B...

 

If the US proves successful in unearthing natural gas from shale formations, the geopolitical structure with the world’s top energy producers could shift in the nation’s favor.

an excerpt:

One slide in his presentation showed a map of the world that highlighted areas with high energy usage. Another slide showed the location of major shale developments near those areas. “[Shale gas] basically sits right in our backyard,” he said. “It’s not just about where the resources are located. It’s also about regulatory infrastructure that’s in place that promotes the development of this resource.”

The False Claims Against Fracking: Who And What Is Behind Them

The highly successful process of hydraulic fracturing of subsurface rocks to increase the production of oil and gas has been used for at least 50 years with few problems.  Now it is suddenly being demonized.  One might wonder why.  The following article offers a few clues.

Is this political and not scientific?  Of course.  That is par for the course from the liberal or ironically-named "progressive" side of the political spectrum.  It is sad that more people cannot see through the charade represented by activities like Al Gore's global warming crusade.  It also makes one wonder what our young people are being taught in school that allows them to be so easily fooled and manipulated.
Peter



January 12, 2012

Scientists Discover Gassy Liberal Pseudo-Science

By John Ransom

source:
 http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/johnransom/2012/01/12/scientists_discover_gassy_liberal_pseudoscience
1/12/2012
The science portal New Scientist reported yesterday that the much-publicized risks involved in the natural gas recovery method of “fracking” have been exaggerated according to British geologists.



“Frack away, there's no reason not to,” writes New Scientist. “Two of the main objections to ‘fracking’”- [earthquakes and well-water contamination] - “have been blown out of proportion, according to British geologists… ‘We think the risk is pretty low,’ said Mike Stephenson, head of energy science at the British Geological Survey at a press briefing in London on Tuesday.”



Fracking involves boring into shale deposits with water, chemicals and particulates in order to open seams to allow the escape of natural gas, oil and other fossil gases for recovery as fuel. Huge new reserves of energy have been found in the US over the last decade that can only be recovered by fracking. These reserves have the potential to supply hundreds of years of energy for the US, meaning the country can import less energy from foreign sources, even if domestic sources are only partially developed. The discovery is a threat to liberals because it could upset the bedrock liberal scam that we have to ration everything, including energy.



As conservative George Will noted at the beginning of the year:



Because progressivism exists to justify a few people bossing around most people and because progressives believe that only government’s energy should flow unimpeded, they crave energy scarcities as an excuse for rationing — by them — that produces ever-more-minute government supervision of Americans’ behavior.



Accordingly, liberals have been pushing for a ban on fracking, also called hydraulic fracturing, because of supposed health and environmental risks the method poses. Those risks have been widely hyped via the liberals’ new scientific peer-reviewed media of the docu-drama.



Following the stunning success of Al Gore’s fictional docu-drama, An Inconvenient Truth, a movie about- gasp!- GLOBAL WARMING, a film that relied more on hyperbole than on hypothesis- one science site counted 35 scientific errors in the film before they got through the opening credits- liberals have made a cottage industry of creating pseudo-science through the media magic of the docu-drama.



Peer-review for such efforts have widely consisted of 1) Approval by the Nobel Committee, which is controlled by the Labour and Socialist parties of Norway (really) and; 2) Glowing reviews by the New York Times, which publication is probably way too conservative for the Labour and Socialist parties of Norway.



One such film is Gasland, an expose that uses pyrotechnic effects to “prove” that fracking is turning water into fire around the country. The film, created by Josh Fox, an actor who the New York Times called "one of the most adventurous impresarios of the New York avant-garde," is an avant-garde and adventurous look at the science behind hydraulic fracturing- that is, if you translate avant-garde as “completely fictionalized.”



Liberals don’t think it’s necessary to have scientists investigate the claims made in Gasland, especially when they can "prove" the claims by movie magic created by a celebrated actor, playing a pseudo-scientist-slash-activist who is supported in part by “five grants from the National Endowment for the Arts” and enjoys support from the nephew of George Soros. Really.



Speaking scientifically, that's really impressive. Who needs scientists when you have "brilliantly resourceful mastery of stagecraft" that Josh Fox brings and the popcorn is paid for by taxpayers? Science no longer represents the quest for truth, but only what you con someone into believing. Then all you have to do is manipulate data until you get the result you want.



Well apparently, at least New Scientist still has room for, um, old-fashioned science that relies on objective data.



The idea that fracked methane leaks into drinking water was popularised by the documentary film Gasland, in which a resident of Pennsylvania sets his tap water alight. On Tuesday, Stephenson said he could not comment on this specific case, but that such contamination is unlikely.



Peer-reviewed research on methane contamination is scarce but what little there is suggests fracking is not to blame.



The publication also points out that earthquakes that have been blamed on fracking have been exaggerated.



While earthquakes have happened as a result of fracking, they have been no different than similar temblors caused by- gasp!- COAL MINING. Remember: COAL MINING has been linked to GLOBAL WARMING by ALGORE in a peer-reviewed movie.



Still, the settled science on fracking has not stopped states from banning fracking or investigating the banning of fracking. Governor Chris Christie in New Jersey recently pushed through a ban on fracking in the state of New Jersey. Ohio and New York banned fracking as well. Municipalities in Colorado have asked the state to allow them to ban fracking locally since the state is likely to allow fracking to continue. The docu-drama that currently masquerades as the country of France has also banned fracking.



Instead they prefer to import oil from Libya.



The 30,000 killed, 20,000 wounded in Libya, I guess, is a better price to pay than acknowledging the flaws in the scientific non-science from the left presented on TV, at the theater and in the news.



It may not be true, but it sure is brilliantly resourceful stagecraft.



For liberals who have oh'ed and aw'ed at the Styrofoam columns that have held up Obama's presidency, truth isn't wanted, only stagecraft.



John Ransom

John Ransom is the Finance Editor for Townhall Finance. You can follow him on twitter @bamransom and on Facebook: bamransom.

Horizontal Drilling And Geosteering Enable Shale Gas Production

In all the excitement (in some circles) about the production of gas utilizing the combination of "horizontal" or directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing of these wells, it is rarely, almost never, (outside of technical journals) described or discussed HOW these wells are drilled. How are they guided, how are they "steered" into and through the desired layers of rock, in this case shale? Many technologies are brought to bear in finding and producing this gas. Much of that work is held tight by energy companies and much of it goes unheralded. But that will change.
Peter

The Quiet Energy Revolution

FROM-American

By Max Schulz

How ironic that during the ‘drill, baby, drill’ demonstrations as gasoline prices spiked in 2007 and 2008, a silent revolution with natural gas was already underway that will make those concerns largely irrelevant

The 20th century was the century of oil. Wars were fought over it, and the outcomes of the century’s biggest conflicts hinged on the stuff. In World War I, for instance, Churchill’s conversion of the British Navy to oil gave the crown’s ships supremacy over German vessels. In World War II, when the Nazis and Japanese each failed to secure supplies of oil, they were doomed. Later, President Ronald Reagan, CIA Director William Casey, and America’s Middle Eastern partners manipulated global oil production to bankrupt the Soviet Union and win the Cold War. In the first half of the century, oil policy served as the catalyst for military victory. In the second half, oil helped propel the greatest economic expansion in the history of the world, and liberated mankind from the tyranny of immobility.

All hail oil! But not too much, because the 21st century won’t be defined by oil. It is more likely to be defined by a different fossil fuel: natural gas.

Two monumental shifts in the world of energy are underway right now: one technological, the other financial. They will change the way we power our lives (especially our cars), provide a real measure of energy security, and help curb greenhouse gas emissions. Neither shift has anything to do with the turn to a green renewable energy economy promised by President Obama.

Physics ensures that will never happen, no matter how much wishful thinking (and government subsidy) is applied. Sorry, greens, carbon-based energy will continue to dominate our energy future, not windmills or solar panels.

The first profound shift was made possible by a little-noticed technological breakthrough in the last three years that has changed the way we extract natural gas. Engineers now make use of two important innovations.

One is horizontal, or directional, drilling, which permits wells to move laterally beneath the surface instead of going straight down. This technology minimizes the number of holes that have to be drilled, leaving a smaller surface footprint and accessing a larger area.

The other technology is hydraulic fracturing, used to extract gas trapped in porous shale rock. In this process, also known as fracking, water and chemicals are pumped at tremendous pressure into shale rock formations to push gas into pockets for easier recovery.

By marrying and perfecting the two processes into a technology called horizontal fracking, engineering has virtually created, from nothing, new natural gas resources, previously regarded as inaccessibly locked in useless shale deposits. Suddenly, the mammoth shale formations in Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, North Dakota, and elsewhere have the potential to produce abundant amounts of gas for decades to come.

How significant are these developments? Exxon Mobil announced in December that it will pay $41 billion—that’s right, billion—to acquire XTO Energy and its expertise at extracting unconventional natural gas resources. The French energy company Total SA, meanwhile, is paying $2.2 billion to acquire a 25 percent stake in Chesapeake Energy’s Barnett Shale operations in Texas.

Human ingenuity has turned theoretical gas reserves—too costly ever to be exploited—into practical resources. And just in time. Less than a decade ago, experts were noting that conventional natural gas production had begun to plateau, despite annual increases in the number of wells drilled. The National Petroleum Council warned in 2003 that “North America is moving to a period in its history in which it will no longer be self-reliant in meeting its growing natural gas needs.” In the spring of 2004, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned that, driven by these looming shortages, wellhead natural gas prices might top $6 per thousand cubic feet by summer, roughly double 2002 prices; and indeed, until the recession brought down demand, natural gas did sell in the $5–$9 per thousand cubic feet range.

Horizontal fracking has helped eliminate many of those grave worries. As Pulitzer-prize winning author and energy analyst Daniel Yergin and his colleague Robert Ineson wrote recently in the Wall Street Journal, production in the lower 48 states “surged an astonishing 15 percent from the beginning of 2007 to mid-2008.” And this is just the tip of the iceberg, as production ramps up in the nation’s shale formations, such as in Marcellus, Bakken, and Haynesville. What was once a shortage has given way to a glut, or, as Yergin and Ineson put it, a “shale gale.”

Proven reserves of natural gas in the United States have been revised upward by 50 percent in the last decade, and those numbers are sure to climb higher as more shale gas is discovered. Perhaps not surprisingly, other nations are sending geologists to the United States to study techniques for extracting gas from unconventional sources. China, India, and Australia all have enormous shale fields. In the coming decades, the shale gale won’t be just an American phenomenon; it will blow all over the globe.

A technological advance created the first shift, driven by free markets not by government edict. The second shift complements the first, and has taken place again because of the way free markets work. That is the formation of a global market for natural gas, much the same as the global petroleum market.

We are accustomed to think of crude oil as a global commodity, its price the same roughly all over the world. Partly that is because oil is so easily transported. Turn on the taps, and a tanker ship can be filled with liquid crude before heading for any seaport on the planet. On land, oil can travel by pipeline, by truck, or even by the barrel or the one-gallon container. The portability of oil helped an international market begin to blossom more than a century ago.

Natural gas and natural gas markets, however, are different. Ethereal and highly flammable, natural gas poses significant transportation problems. A tanker ship can’t simply fill up and shove off. For this reason, there has been no single global market for gas, but a number of balkanized, regional markets all over the planet. The price of natural gas in one region has little connection to the price in another, and for many years regions facing shortages could not be relieved by gas from regions with excess capacity.

That is changing, not as rapidly as the shale gale has transformed America’s gas picture, but still rapidly compared with other business transformations. The reason is liquefied natural gas (LNG). Innovations in liquefaction and re-gasification technologies allow gas to be condensed to 1/600th its size, which then can be shipped by sea. Major infrastructure investments by energy companies and governments, along with the development of specially designed double-hulled tankers to transport LNG, are creating a robust, integrated market for natural gas.

The implications are profound and largely positive. The new mobility of LNG will bring a sorely needed measure of market stability after the past five years of unpredictability in price and supply.

On the other hand, some observers fear that creating a global marketplace will spur the establishment of a nefarious natural gas cartel similar to oil’s OPEC. Such worries, however, overstate a potential cartel’s capacity to manipulate a diversified, global market, particularly one in which nations like Australia, Canada, and the United States will be heavyweights. Indeed, one truly positive benefit is that the emergence of a market for LNG will severely limit Russia’s ability to use its significant gas resources as a political and economic weapon, as Moscow has done in recent years with its European neighbors.

LNG, along with the shale gale, should help keep natural gas prices low for a long time. The average wellhead price for natural gas in the United States had crept to $8 per thousand cubic feet in 2008. There is little doubt that high energy prices were among the contributing factors to the economic downturn that began in the latter half of 2008. An ocean of cheap gas augurs well for America’s and the global economy’s future.

Natural gas may also change how we drive, and enable ordinary consumers to break oil’s monopoly on transportation. As my colleague, Peter Huber, notes in a recent Manhattan Institute report, “Gas-handling technologies [have] improved quite enough to make natural gas a practical alternative” to oil. After all, gas is cheaper than gasoline and diesel per unit of energy. That’s why large stationary power plants that used to run on oil switched to natural gas long ago.

The chief obstacle to developing a natural gas infrastructure capable of supplying service stations and highway rest stops is regulatory. If that is removed—and here we do need government action—we could expect to see trucks, buses, and cars running on natural gas in a relatively short period of time. The reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would be considerable.

We may also see continued inroads of gas into the electricity-generating sector (which can also affect transportation as we move to hybrid and electric vehicles). Gas emits about half as much carbon per unit of energy as coal. With worries about long-term gas supplies allayed, expect regulators and utilities to favor construction of new gas-fired power plants over controversial coal plants, which are more expensive to build anyway. This same thing happened during the 1990s, and gas shot to a 20 percent share of America’s electricity economy as a result.

The Energy Information Administration estimates that U.S. demand for electricity will rise 26 percent by 2030. Gas-fired power is slightly more expensive than coal-fired electricity today and much more expensive when the wellhead price of gas soars. But stable, lower long-term gas prices brought on by the shale gale and the emerging LNG market will ensure that coal’s pricing advantage is not so pronounced. Gas is well positioned to help meet that increase.

The age of oil took off with a boom when the Spindletop gusher blew in 1901. A century later, as the price of oil hit new records, our politics were inflamed by an acrimonious debate over offshore oil drilling and breaching the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. How ironic that during the “drill, baby, drill” demonstrations as gasoline prices spiked in 2007 and 2008, a silent revolution with natural gas was already underway that could make those concerns largely irrelevant.

Max Schulz is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute

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