the frack thread

[PS_RalphW]

The US shale gas drilling companies have triggered a local glut by drilling too many holes too quickly. Not that much of a glut, because they are still a net importer of NG from Canada. They are still drilling holes, because their share price is controlled not by their cash flow but by their accredited reserves. As each well depletes rapidly, they need to keep opening new wells to keep the number up, even at an operating loss. Also their drilling rights are time limited. If they don't drill in a fixed amount of time, they lose the concession. Sooner or later the smaller companies hit their credit (or shareholder tolerance ) limit go under, with the big companies picking them up for a song.

Classic gold rush.

[ujoni08]

...sounds like a familiar human theme

[mobbsey]

Where new gas supplies from shale, and lack of export capacity, have forced gas down 75% in three years.

The significant variable here is "three years" -- i.e., pre- and post-crash. As in Europe, energy demand has dropped due to lower demand from a lacklustre economy. What this means is that whilst the boom in prices during the years of rapid energy growth created the Bakken and Marcellus boom, recent low prices are threatening the sustainability of existing, and choking of the development of new, gas extraction operations.

Many articles like this are created by the PR companies of "big energy". They provide all the content and the media effectively "cut and paste" the free content. Assessments by the energy media don't correspond with a lot of this material. E.g.:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8212
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/us/26 ... s&emc=tha2
http://www.basinsradio.com/basin/local/ ... uptcy.html
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/energy- ... le-gas/243
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/d ... sfeed=true
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/27/us/27 ... gewanted=1

I think you're trying to find a silver lining in a cloud that's really just an artificially engineered layer of foil-laminated plastic

[RenewableCandy]

For example, look at CAT -- a walk around CAT these days, and the corporate logos displayed there, shows the level of corporate infiltration into their funding, and of course they make a lot of their funding from educational work with is largely structured around the needs of corporate training/qualifications.

I kindof wondered what exactly it was about CAT that had meant I no longer really identified with it (I did the MSc course there in 2005-6). Yeah, spot-on: it's gone all Corporate.

[emordnilap]

Many articles like this are created by the PR companies of "big energy". They provide all the content and the media effectively "cut and paste" the free content.

In a similar manner to the articles by climate change supporters, much energy is expended countering "positive myths" put out by the industry's PR budgets with "negative truths" constantly having to be repeated by non-funded realists.

[mobbsey]

In a similar manner to the articles by climate change supporters, much energy is expended countering "positive myths" put out by the industry's PR budgets with "negative truths" constantly having to be repeated by non-funded realists.

Then again, there's a stack of corporate-oriented environmental/climate change guff about at the moment. I get all sorts of weird, wacky and nasty emails about my work -- ranging from Americans calling me a communist, to fluffy climate campaigners over here querying why I don't gush about solar PV and industrial wind.

The most radical thing you can do in today's world is to think for yourself, and then get on and do something about the problem yourself.

[vtsnowedin]

[The most radical thing you can do in today's world is to think for yourself, and then get on and do something about the problem yourself.

+1

[emordnilap]

The most radical thing you can do in today's world is to think for yourself, and then get on and do something about the problem yourself.

Sad use of 'radical' isn't it? It really should be 'normal'. It works much better.

[mobbsey]

Sad use of 'radical' isn't it? It really should be 'normal'.

If only that were true... unfortunately it isn't.

It saddens me when I give talks to universities/MSc courses and, whilst you get the odd bright spark, most are just there to keep their heads down and tick the boxes. In a world where (from the feedback from my two children) secondary schools encourage people to think that they have to do what the system wants or be a loser, such attitudes are not surprising. What's worse is that, having being forced to watch "mainstream" TV a few days ago at someone's party, such banal expectations have been elevated to the level of a "culture".

[DominicJ]

Many articles like this are created by the PR companies of "big energy". They provide all the content and the media effectively "cut and paste" the free content.

In a similar manner to the articles by climate change supporters, much energy is expended countering "positive myths" put out by the industry's PR budgets with "negative truths" constantly having to be repeated by non-funded realists.

Yeah, warmists are entirely unfunded and do it all for the good of humanity from their own pockets.
The financial dealings of the IPCC say otherwise, but who cares about facts?

[PS_RalphW]

Throw enough mud and sooner or later some of it sticks.

The recent 'climategate' shenanigans were extensively funded by a middle east oil exporting country with unlimited funds and access to the MSM.

Prove me wrong.

[mobbsey]

Prove me wrong.

It's logically impossible to prove a negative; it's only possible to show that something is logically valid, although of course correlation does not indicate causation in Bayesian analysis (apparently even UK courts won't accept Bayesian testing of causation!).

[emordnilap]

Straying back on topic for a moment, where is the sand to come from for these wells, both in the UK and Ireland?

99.4 percent quartz (silicon dioxide). That’s one of the characteristics sought in fracking sand, along with round grains in a specific size range. The grains are left behind in the cracks created by the fracking process and keep the cracks open to allow gas or oil to flow into the well. Quartz is resistant to crushing, so the cracks stay open.

Here's a link to a pdf about frack sand.

[mobbsey]

where is the sand to come from for these wells, both in the UK and Ireland?

Rounded quartz sand grains are the result of aeolian sand deposits -- sands that have been created in deserts -- rather than riverine deposits which are created by flowing water and which created crushed/angular sand grains.

Poorly cemented Devonian or Permian/Triassic sandstones have these characteristics, and can be found in the UK and Ireland -- although it's probably cheaper just to import it from the Western Sahara.

[PS_RalphW]

Prove me wrong.

It's logically impossible to prove a negative; it's only possible to show that something is logically valid, although of course correlation does not indicate causation in Bayesian analysis (apparently even UK courts won't accept Bayesian testing of causation!).

Of course I was playing devil's advocate. I can make up stories which sound plausible to those embedded on one side of an argument, and they are very hard to disprove. Make up enough, and spread them around through different media sources (or wikipedia pages) and they very quickly 'common knowledge' which is impossible to dislodge.

Give a dog a name...