"NEW OIL ENERGY OPTIMISM"

(First a comment on my last blog about doctor problems in Medicare. Turns out I have a little bit of a problem in my Pancreas. Something there that ain’t suppose to be there. So once again I have to tell you, “we’ll see.” In the meantime lets press forward.)

On Wednesday April 11th the NY Times ran a special 10 page section on Energy. So, what did they have to say. Opening headline. FUEL TO BURN: NOW WHAT? “Abundant and cheaper fuel. Damping enthusiasm for clean forms of energy and derailing efforts to wean the nation from it’s wasteful energy habits.” Yes, we have been scared stiff about a flair up in the Middle East, like a bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites would hit us with another “cars waiting on gas lines to fill up.” Politically that could be an election buster for Obama. So as far as our cars are concerned we can go back to the old Industrial Revolution party YIPPEEE “we can have it all. Including gas guzzlers cause our very own oil boom is on its way.

The big surprises are coming as a result of NEW TECHNOLOGIES. (Think Titannic here.Man conquering nature. That very old dream.) Years ago this is what my local Hardware store buddies were telling me. “Listen Robert stop worrying about peak oil.” I had published a blog about how we were about to run out of one of the biggest oil fields in Saudi Arabia. That would have been a game changer. The hardware store gang were right. Technology to the rescue with new techniques for deep drilling and horizontal line drilling to find new sources of oil. Here at home we are doing that with old wells in Texas, California etc.

And then there’s FRACKING FOR SHALE OIL & GAS! First of all the fossil fuel retrieved as a result of fracking is by far the dirtiest. It requires a lot of water and chemicals to be literally exploded down as far as 5,000 feet or more to loosen the tar like substance and then to refine it and turn it into gasoline or diesel fuel. Frankly we don’t really know all the harm that can result from this type of activity. (BUT WHO CARES BECUSE WE ARE BACK PARTYING IN THE WORLD OF FOSSIL FUELS,)

Here’s the elephant in the room that we simply refuse to recognize. Pssst, that would interfere with the PARTY and the money to be made in this new market. Okay you think I make this stuff up? New York Times, ”oil production in the US could reach an astounding 27 million barrels by 2020 almost double the production of 2011.” That would also double the amount of carbon dioxide that we are dumping into the atmosphere. That would double the speed of the natural breakdown of climate change. There are wee little breakthroughs on Climate Change recognition. A few times of late I have noticed that news Anchors on major networks when reporting on the increase in Tornados, Floods, Drought's Heat waves, Cold waves etc. are beginning to ask the question, “COULD THESE CHANGES IN WEATHER PATTERNS BE THE RESULT OF CLIMATE CHANGE?” HURRAY THEY'RE WAKING UP. Maybe it’s to late.

It is precisely because we are reluctant to give up the old Industrial party of burning relatively cheap fossil fuel that we are destroying the very planet that we have been partying on for all these years. With the Polar Bear acting as the Canary in the coal mine. (When the mine gas level killed the Canary the miners knew it was time to get out, quick.) The Polar bear is telling us to stop dumping the million of tons of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere. It has defrosted the Arctic Ocean.

There are warning signs all over the world. Rapid increase of glacial ice melt raising ocean levels. Glaciers melting, forerunner of no drinking water for millions of people, Acidification of the oceans, destroying basic food sources, I fear we will end up destroying the very place we we had a wonderful life for 200 years. Future generations will have a tough time trying to understand what was wrong with us? Just as I do now.