wonkin-after-midnight-blog

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AN AMERICAN OIL FIND THAT HOLDS MORE THAN ALL OF OPEC

Drillers in Utah and Colorado are poking into a massive shale deposit trying to find a way to unlock oil reserves that are so vast they would swamp OPEC.  The amount of oil recoverable is estimated to be 3 trillion barrels – three times more that the whole world has consumed in the past 100 years.

An initial exploration well 40 miles northwest of Rifle, Colorado, owned by American Shale Oil LLC. It sits atop part of the Green River Formation of shale, believed to contain 3 trillion barrels of oil.

A recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office estimated that if half of the oil bound up in the rock of the Green River Formation could be recovered it would be “equal to the entire world’s proven oil reserves.”

Both the GAO and private industry estimate the amount of oil recoverable to be 3 trillion barrels.

“In the past 100 years — in all of human history — we have consumed 1 trillion barrels of oil. There are several times that much here,” said Roger Day, vice president for operations for American Shale Oil (AMSO).

The Green River drilling is beginning as shale mining is booming in the U.S. and a report by the International Energy Agency predicts that the U.S. will become the world’s largest oil producer by 2020. That flood of oil can have major implications for the U.S. economy as well as the country’s foreign policy which has been based on a growing scarcity of oil.

The IEA report does not detail where the American oil will be coming from, but the largest deposit is the Green River formation which has yet to tapped in any significant way.

This tantalizing bonanza, however, remains just out of reach, at least for now. The cost of extracting the Green River oil at the moment would be higher than what it could be sold for. And there are significant environmental obstacles.

The operation might require so much water it would compete with Denver and agriculture for vital supplies, the GAO report warned, could pollute underground streams, affect fish and other wildlife, and kick up so much dirt it would leave national monuments in a cloud of dust.

Nevertheless, the federal government has authorized six experimental drilling leases on federal land in an effort to find a way to tap into the riches of the Green River Formation.

Day’s American Shale has a lease on 160 acres 40 miles northwest of Rifle, Colo. It has already produced oil on a pilot basis, and now stands poised, if it gets the necessary government permissions, to produce on a larger scale.

Getting oil from Green River shale is a different proposition than getting gas and oil from other sites by using the controversial method of “fracking,” fracturing the underground rock with pressurized, chemical-infused water.

The hydrocarbons in Green River shale are more intimately bound up with the rock, so that fracking cannot release them. The shale has to be heated to 5,000 degrees Farenheit before it will give up its oil.

Producers have been trying to accomplish that in one of two ways: Either they bring the shale to the surface and then cook it , or they sink a deep shaft and place an electric heater at the base, a process called in-situ. AMSO has been testing in-situ with mixed success.

“We put in a 600 kilowatt electric heater in, 2,100 feet below the surface,” said Day. “The idea was that this would heat the shale and cause the conversion of solid hydrocarbons into liquid oil and gas. These, then, would be brought to the surface.”

Things have not gone smoothly.

“We plugged it in the first week in January,” said Day, referring to the heater. “It burned out like your toaster, only this is a toaster that costs several million dollars to repair. Just in the past month we’ve figured out what went wrong. We expect to re-install in December. If we’re lucky, we’ll put heat in the ground again before the end of the year.”

If everything pans out and if AMSO gets the green light from the federal government, the company’s half-dozen wells initially might produce about 1,000 barrels a day. Later, at peak production, Day estimates they could produce “100,000 barrels a day for 30 years.”

Enefit, an oil producer headquartered in Estonia, has been producing oil from oil shale in Europe for more than 30 years, according to the CEO of its Utah subsidiary, Enefit American Oil. Rikki Hrenko says Enefit brings the shale to the surface, then heats it in retorts.

“It’s more labor intensive to have to mine the shale,” Hrenko said. “But the economics are still quite feasible.” She puts the break-even price at about $65 a barrel. The cost of producing in Utah, she thinks, will be only slightly higher than in Estonia.

Enefit doesn’t lease its Utah site from the U.S. government; it owns it. “We purchased it March 2011,” Hrenko says. The company’s goal is to have all the necessary permits by the end of 2016, start construction, and to be producing oil commercially in 2020 at the rate of 25,000 barrels a day.

Among the hurdles faced by would-be Green River producers are environmental costs, first among them being water consumption, according to the GAO report. Current estimates on how much water might be needed to realize the potential of Green River oil “vary significantly,” the report admits. But water in the arid west already is in short supply, and ranchers and environmentalists eye warily the oil industry’s potential thirst.

Green River Oil Reserves Larger Than OPEC

Water would be used not for fracking, but as a lubricant for drilling. Frank Rusco, GAO’s director for energy and science issues, told ABC News water also would be used as steam “to stimulate the flow of oil.” Water would also be neeeded, as at any work site, for dust control and cooling.

Day said he expects AMSO’s in-situ wells will be water-neutral. Experiments so far suggest that the company may get a barrel of water from the rock for every barrel of oil extracted. AMSO intends to cool its operations using radiators, not water.

Rusco doubts substantial amounts of oil could be produced from Green River anytime soon because production is not yet economical. It costs more to produce a barrel of oil here than the oil can be sold for on the market.

GAO’s report says commercial development of oil shale is “at least 15-20 years away.”

Glenn Vawter, executive director of the National Oil Shale Association in Glenwood Springs, Colo., isn’t so sure. Right now, he says, it costs his members somewhere between $40 and $80 to produce a barrel of oil from shale, depending on the technology they use. The price of oil, currently at $86 a barrel, has risen in the past over $100 a barrel and continues to fluctuate. Technology, he points out, is also evolving.

A Canadian oil producer has experimented with using radio energy to heat rock.

“The economics remain a bit speculative,” Vawter said, but he thinks that “big production” might be only five to 10 years out.

There’s no question, says Rusco, that the oil is there, all 3 trillion barrels of it.

“The technology for assessing oil reserves is pretty good,” Rusco said. “I don’t say there isn’t a wide margin of error, but you can have great confidence that there is a very, very large amount of oil trapped down there that could be recovered. It’s just that, so far, it can’t be recovered at a profit.”

Drill Baby Drill! I hate that phrase, but in this case I am 100% behind it. Trust me guys, I LOVE Utah's beauty. It is a gorgeous state, and we Utahns are fiercely protective of its natural splendors. But over 70% of it is federal land we are not allowed to touch, despite our leaders' attempts to gain control over land the state SHOULD have control over. Do they think we are so stupid that we cannot properly manage our own backyard? The extra drilling here, on a TINY portion of our state's land, would help bring valuable, high paying jobs to the region, would help bring extra funding to our public schools, and would help reduce the dependency on foreign oil. Obama's administration's gross mismanagement of our energy resources—funding Solyndra boondoggles while reducing our oil producing viability, for example—continues to contribute to the cost of oil skyrocketing, making shale oil production more commercially viable by the day. A man who starves to death despite a full fridge, because he refuses to consume anything contained therein, is not a wise steward of his resources, he is a fool. We look foolish, in the bad economic times we are in, by behaving in a similar manner when it comes to the energy sources available under our very noses.

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Florida professor: Obama an 'apostle' sent to create 'heaven here on earth'

According to a book written by longtime Florida A&M University professor Barbara A. Thompson, Barack Obama is no mere mortal. He is, as she wrote, "Apostle Barack," sent to create a “heaven here on earth,” a post at PJ Tatler said Monday.

In her book, "The Gospel According to Apostle Barack: In Search of a More Perfect Political Union as 'Heaven Here on Earth,'" Professor Thompson says she was given this message in her dreams.

"Yes, Barack had worked tirelessly on behalf of the American people, especially those who elected him in 2008. His followers needed to re-elect him to a second term, so that he could continue to accomplish the promises he made, thus, realizing his vision of America as a more perfect political union or heaven here on earth,'” the book description at Amazon says.

"Then, as I began to contemplate ways to assist Barack in his 2012 re-election bid something miraculous happened. I felt God’s (His) Spirit beckoning me in my dreams at night. Listening, cautiously, I learned that Jesus walked the earth to create a more civilized society, Martin (Luther King) walked the earth to create a more justified society, but, Apostle Barack, the name he was called in my dreams, would walk the earth to create a more equalized society, for the middle class and working poor," she added.

"Barack, the next young leader with a new cause, had been taken to the mountaintop and allowed to see over the other side. He had the answers to unlock the kingdom of 'heaven here on earth' for his followers. The answers were repeated - over and over - in speeches Barack had made from his presidential announcement to his inaugural address. Those speeches or his teachings contained the answers to the middle class and working poor people living in a 'heaven here on earth.' For when the answers were unlocked and enacted, Apostle Barack’s vision of America would be realized," Thompson wrote.

"Pity her poor students who are going into hock to attend her classes. Now I fear even more for the future of our nation if this is the kind of manure students are hearing from their professors," PJ Tatler said.

This is not the first time liberals have attempted to deify Barack Obama. In November 2010, Newsweek magazine dubbed him "god of all things" while using a pose reminiscent of a Hindu deity.

A few months after he was first inaugurated, Newsweek's Evan Thomas elevated him to the status of a deity.

"Well, we were the good guys in 1984, it felt that way. It hasn't felt that way in recent years. So Obama’s had, really, a different task. We're seen too often as the bad guys. And he – he has a very different job from – Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is ‘we are above that now.’ We're not just parochial, we're not just chauvinistic, we're not just provincial. We stand for something – I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God," he told Chris Matthews.

According to the description at Amazon, the author wants the book to be used "as a means of teaching Apostle Barack's followers about him and guiding them towards understanding 'politics as religion' and 'religion as politics.'"

As of this writing, all of the reviews at Amazon are negative.

One person called it "blasphemy," and another called the author a "loon."

"I know Jesus, Jesus is a savior of mine," one person from Sacramento wrote. "You sir (Obama), are no Jesus, or an apostle of Jesus."

Yet conservatives and libertarians are the crazy ones? Putting your spiritual trust in a man—and a politician, to boot—is just asking for trouble.

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LOL true term is true. And yaaaay all the Ryanistas :)  Never give up, never surrender!

I missed you guys. Sorry I checked out for a bit; the election results overwhelmed me, I had to go Galt and just step away. I see I’ve lost followers; not sure if that is due to the conservatives I follow who planned on deleting their Tumblrs anyway, and said so before the election, or if is due…

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You guys know that quote is FAKE, right? Snopes, canz you haz it? And ugh cannot believe I am reblogging the Obamas.

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Ask a Bespoke Tailor: How Can James Bond Fight in Those Suits?

Throughout Skyfall, James Bond runs, jumps, fights, and falls, yet he never fails to look dapper. It's hard not to be incredulous. Anyone who's worn a suit (even a nicely fitting one) to a wedding knows that it's difficult enough to dance with the thing on; the prospect of fighting terrorists in one seems damn near impossible. How is Bond able to land on a moving train in a perfectly tailored bespoke suit? We spoke with Brooklyn fine suit-maker and Bond fan Peter Frew of Archangelo Sartorial about it. He studied under a bespoke tailor from Savile Row, the London shopping district famous for its men's suiting and likely where a real-life Bond would shop. Frew let us in on what Bond's tailors would've had to do for him to both look kick-ass and kick ass at the same time.

How has the look of Bond changed? The look is a bit more modern right now. The buttonholes are higher than in Sean Connery's day. And the suits are a bit more fitted. The difference is in the silhouette and the width of the lapels. It’s not a big change. It’s still a single-breasted jacket.

Have you ever had a customer who wanted a suit he could ride a motorcycle in? Yeah. Usually, I recommend a little fuller in the back. Not overly full but just a little more room than normal. Armholes: really high. Buttons: high. And the sleeves are a little bit more full.

Why is that? It comes with movement — you have to bend over and lean forward, so you have to give as much comfort as possible in the back. 

How would you tailor a suit or tuxedo to make it fighting -ready? Armholes would be high. That’s the key thing — armholes have to be high. The shoulders have to be natural, so as little shoulder pad as possible. Small armhole, but the sleeve has to be a little bit fuller, so you’re able to just raise your arms up. Also, it has to be the correct width for the arm. It shouldn’t be too wide or too close. There’s no general rule on how it should be – it depends on the customer’s arm.

And what about if someone needed to be able to kick. What alterations would need to be made? Oh, they would definitely have to be comfortable wearing their trousers really high. Because if you’re wearing a low-cut trouser, then you’d have to wear a fuller cut in order to have that comfort. But if you want to wear a nice, skinny trouser, a slim-fitting trouser, then you have to be comfortable wearing your crotch high. Pretty much, the key for that kind of movement is the crotch. Like, the jacket would be the armhole, for the trouser it would be the crotch.

So you’re saying it needs to be higher up? Yeah, I mean, not giving him a wedgie [laughs] but it should be high enough, you know, just touching your person.

How would a suit need to be cut for the wearer to be comfortable carrying a handgun? I’ve done a suit for someone who carries a small .22 – legally that is [laughs]. The thing is a fuller chest. So right under the ribcage, exactly that position where the weapon would be concealed, that would be fuller. And then everything else would be tapered down.   

There seems to be a lot of very specific alterations needed. Would it be possible for James Bond to do his thing if the suit wasn't specifically made for him? No, no. It’s not possible. There’s no fixed amount of how deep or how wide the armhole should be. It all depends on that customer. How your arms are when you’re standing relaxed is incredibly important: Are they forward, are they slouching to the side, are they a little back as if your chest is pushing up? The balance of the sleeve has to be just in the right place and Bond wouldn't get the accuracy necessary without it being costumed.  

With suits, it’s exactly where James Bond's lavish lifestyle is necessary. He needs to get the $4000 suit? Right, correct.

How long do you think a suit can withstand nonstop fighting and running and jumping and falling? That would depend mostly on what kind of abrasion the suit is getting because it’s still fabric. If it’s rubbed against something coarse, then that could really result in significant damage. But in terms of running around and moving or rolling on the ground and stuff like that, then that suit could last, you know, ten years, fifteen years, it depends.

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Media: Republicans Are So Stupid. . .

. . . They Thought They Could Win An Election That Everyone Said Was Too Close To Call And Would Depend on Turnout

—Ace

Jonathan Martin of Politico has been pushing that line -- shock of shocks. Nolte rebuts him some. So did AllahPundit. Here's a quote from liberal hack Jonathan Martin:

GOP officials have chalked up their electoral thumping to everything from the country’s changing demographics to an ill-timed hurricane and failed voter turn-out system, but a cadre of Republicans under 50 believes the party’s problem is even more fundamental. The party is suffering from Pauline Kaelism. Kael was The New Yorker movie critic who famously said in the wake of Richard M. Nixon’s 49-state landslide in 1972 that she knew only one person who voted for Nixon. Now, many young Republicans worry, they are the ones in the hermetically sealed bubble — except it’s not confined to geography but rather a self-selected media universe in which only their own views are reinforced and an alternate reality is reflected… In this reassuring conservative pocket universe, Rasmussen polls are gospel, the Benghazi controversy is worse than Watergate, “Fair and Balanced” isn’t just marketing and Dick Morris is a political seer.

The liberal media cannot actually win on non-factual points, as they are supposed to be in the fact business. Not the opinion business. They actually are in the opinion business, but they're not supposed to be. They cannot "win" an "argument" over raising taxes, or gay marriage, or abortion, even though they would really, really like to. These things are generally not matters of fact. There are some facts to be argued about in each case, but the facts are just selected to prove a belief. It's really the belief that comes first; the facts are secondary.

But the media wishes to win these arguments.

What they do instead is push proxies for the real arguments they wish to win. For example, the media covers the living hell out of every conservative sex scandal, and every conservative money scandal. They try to draw "larger lessons" from such things. They do not cover Democratic scandals with anything close to the same level of flood-the-zone enthusiasm, and do not attempt to draw "larger lessons" of politics from these scandals. The only larger lessons to be are entirely human ones. Bill Clinton's sex scandals were his own; no larger lessons about the Democratic Party could be drawn. Cold Cash Jefferson's freezer full of bribes was just one man's failing. Etcetera.

Now, when a Republican falls, that's not really evidence that his policy preferences were wrong. But the media plays it that way. They can't win on the facts as far as policy. And I'm not just saying "conservative policies are factually correct;" I mean no one can win on basic assumptions and beliefs, really. These aren't fact-dependent questions (or, at least, aren't chiefly so). Which is why, then, they rush to link Good Facts For Democrats for Vindications of Democratic Policy. And, of course, Bad Facts for Republicans to Repudiations of Republican Policy. This is what this whole "Should we have foreseen this?" argument is about, as usual.

The election was very close -- just 2%. Only a few presidential elections in all of American history were closer. But the media now has a Good Fact for Democrats. So what do they do? They attempt to link this fact to Democratic policies -- their policies are based on facts and science and numbers and things that liberal reporters are entirely ignorant of, but which they approve of, in the abstract. See, the Democrats are rational and reasonable and we know this because they won a 2-point-margin election. They knew they were going to win. That proves they're smarter, and more rational, and they Love Science (from afar-- sometimes they read the review of Malcolm Gladstone book in the New York Times Review of Books and isn't he sort of science-y?).

Republicans, on the other hand, thought they were going to win, and they were wrong wrong wrong, which proves, like everything else about them, that they are Anti-Science and Anti-Reason and think that the energy crisis can be fixed if we just all love Jesus enough and are basically dumb, crude, and crazy. Note what we're talking about here. The New York Giants defeated the New England Patriots in a very close Super Bowl this past year, in a game most people thought was a toss-up. A game which most people thought would come down to execution and the last few plays (and it did).

Are the people who thought the Patriots would win crazy? Anti-science? Too Jesusy to understand football? Were those who predicted a Giants win geniuses? Their heads Full of Math? No. It was a tossup game, and some people guessed one thing, and some people guessed another. There was evidence to support the idea that the Patriots were a stronger team (they performed better all during the season, had a better W-L record) and there was evidence to support the idea that the Giants would win (they had suddenly come alive late in the season and made people sit up and wonder Where the hell has that team been all season? had the Smell of Destiny about them).

Kind of like the 2012 election, no?

But if anyone seriously attempted to turn his correct guess into a general proof of his Complete Interdisciplinary Mastery of All Fields, we'd call him an idiot and a fool. And if the tried to claim an incorrect guess was proof that Patriots fans were all stupid and anti-science, we'd call him a lunatic. We'd say he was a sad troll trying to turn something trivial -- a guess about the outcome of a close toss-up contest -- into evidence of something large. Like the fat loser at the bar who still wants to talk about the time he won Trivia Night six years ago.

One last thing -- if liberals all "knew this would happen" (which proves they Love Science), why did I see so many damn articles like this before the election?

Things We Didn't Know: I don't think liberals knew in advance that ORCA would fail, or that the 2012 electorate would be about as non-white as 2008, or that Republicans would actually turn out only at the same low levels as in 2008. Or that a lethal hurricane would suddenly give Obama the chance to put down the golf club and pick up his spiffy leather jacket. These things did in fact happen, and they're what turned the election (among a few other things). But I didn't predict the last five minutes of the Giants-Patriots game, and neither did the media, or liberals generally, predict the specifics of this very, very narrow election.

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HELLO CONSERVATIVE TUMBLRSPHERE <3

I missed you guys. Sorry I checked out for a bit; the election results overwhelmed me, I had to go Galt and just step away. I see I've lost followers; not sure if that is due to the conservatives I follow who planned on deleting their Tumblrs anyway, and said so before the election, or if is due to people deleting me for not posting.

Anyway, I'm back, and glad to be back! I'm gonna be traveling but I will try to check in and post and retumble lovely things. It's gonna be a looooong 4 years ahead of us, we need to bouy each other up as much as we possibly can! <3

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AS THEY SHOULD. :)  Glad to find a fellow musical theatre AND Romney/Ryan fan!

ONE MORE DAY BEFORE THE STORM AT THE BARRICADES OF FREEDOM WHEN THE RANKS BEGIN TO FORM WILL YOU TAKE YOUR PLACE WITH ME?

THE TIME IS NOW

THE DAY IS HERE

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If you are taught bitterness and anger, then you will believe you are a victim. You will feel aggrieved and the twin brother of aggrievement is entitlement. So now you think you are owed something and you don’t have to work for it and now you’re on a really bad road to nowhere because there are people who will play to that sense of victimhood, aggrievement and entitlement, and you still won’t have a job.

Condoleezza Rice

CONDI RICE SUMS UP THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IN 75 WORDS.

(via policygal)

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clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose!

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It’s that moment when I feel like I’m writing something bigger than me, like I’m being written through - that’s why I write. Because my problems don’t matter when I have the power to solve someone else’s, and my life isn’t so important when with a few strokes of my keyboard, another’s can start. 

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I despise this woman, I want her out of my white house and away from the red button so bad. She still doesn't have a security clearance, right? I read that somewhere, as anadvisor she is limited in her access, yet Obama obviously tells her everything. And plots Israel's demise behind closed doors. GET THEE TO A NUNNERY.

Breaking: Obama Administration Hid Secret Meetings With Iran From Israel

The Obama Administration was just busted again selling out our ally, Israel.   Valerie Jarrett, also known as “Obama’s Brain”, has been meeting surreptitiously, behind the backs of Congress, behind the backs of Israel, with representatives of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.  The meetings have been going on for months.

Iran, a regime that is calling for the annihilation of the “stinking corpse of Israel” and developing the nuclear capability to follow through, is the largest state sponsor of terrorism and the sworn enemy of Israel. And, yet Obama’s right hand woman is secretly courting them.  With no background or understanding of nuclear foreign policy, or Middle East issues, Jarrett’s only credibility is that she was born there. This is outrageous. YNet News reported:

One of US president’s senior advisors is secretly making efforts to establish line of communication with Iran.

A Chicago lawyer is the key player behind the secret talks between the US and Iran. Yedioth Ahronoth reported Monday. A close friend of Michelle Obama, Valerie Jarrett is assisting the US government communicate behind the scenes with the representatives of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

Jarret, who was born in the Iranian city of Shiraz, is a senior advisor to US President Barack Obama. …

Israel was originally surprised to learn of the talks, but state officials now reveal that they were going on for several months. The talks, they claim, were initiated and led by Jarret, and took place in Bahrain.

This is absolutely horrific.  It’s not surprising, then, that someone who is secretly meeting with the confirmed enemy of our ally would heinously threaten, “After we win this election, it’s our turn.  Payback.”  It’s what the Obama Administration has been practicing all along…vindictive punishment to their enemies.  Instead of Iran, enemies in their case are honest American citizens who dare to not support the worst president in our history.

Can you imagine what Valerie Jarrett has in mind for Israel?

Photo: Barack Obama with Valerie Jarrett (redpillreport.net)

Gateway Pundit

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Heard this news earlier today. Is no less ridiculous. Maybe under a Romney presidency, we will have an attorney general willing to investigate voter fraud, instead of acting like Eric Holder and sweep it all under the rug and dismiss the cases. FINGERS CROSSED.

Absolutely outrageous.

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Could have told them this would happen, but nooooo they can't listen to the stupid conservative

Now vote for Romney.