WSJ/ The Non-Green Jobs Boom

[twa]

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/02/15/tenaris-announces-1-5b-eagle-ford-pipe-plant/

Tenaris, an international company with 4,000 employees in the United States, announced Friday it will build a $1.5 billion pipe mill in Matagorda County to serve drillers in the Eagle Ford and other unconventional shale plays.

The plant, announced during a crowded press conference in Bay City attended by Gov. Rick Perry and dozens of area politicians and economic development officials, is scheduled to open in 2016. The company said it will produce 600,000 tons of tubular goods, primarily casing and tubing used in drilling.

Perry said the package included $6 million from Texas Enterprise Fund.

According to the announcement, the plant will employ 600 people in direct manufacturing jobs, at an average salary of $66,000.

“With this investment, we will strengthen our local production and service capabilities to address the growing demands of the energy industry,” German Cura, president of Tenaris’ North American division said in a statement.

[twa]

What it takes to get the latest tech coal plant approved (and the costs added to your bill)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/21/utilities-aep-coal-idUSL1E8NL00F20121221

American Electric Power Co's Louisiana-based utility said its $1.8 billion Turk power plant in Hempstead County, Arkansas, has begun commercial operation, the nation's first ultra-supercritical coal-fired unit and one of the few coal plants currently being completed.

The 600-megawatt John W. Turk Jr. power plant is owned by Southwestern Electric Power Co (SWEPCO) and was built in about four years despite numerous legal challenges by local and environmental groups to stop the plant.

...

Turk uses an advanced coal combustion technology that burns low-sulfur coal at higher temperatures, which requires less coal and produces fewer emissions, including carbon dioxide, than traditional pulverized coal plants, SWEPCO said.

....

In late 2011, SWEPCO announced a broad settlement to end pending legal challenges to the plant's air and wastewater permits brought by the Sierra Club, the National Audubon Society and Audubon Arkansas.

SWEPCO agreed not to build more coal-fired generation within 30 miles of the Turk plant, to limit output at an older coal-plant in Texas, to build 400 megawatts of renewable generation, to test emissions from the plant, to contribute millions of dollars to The Nature Conservancy and the Arkansas Community Foundation and to pay the opponent's legal fees.

[twa]

The shale revolution is creating thousands of new millionaires from the billions being paid in royalties to private landowners

http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/02/the-shale-revolution-is-creating-thousands-of-new-millionaires-from-the-billions-being-paid-in-royalties-to-private-landowners/

In the first 11 months of last year, it’s possible that more than $15 billion of oil royalty checks were paid to landowners in the Lone Star State, which is more than $1 billion every month, and more than $40 million every day. A similar analysis shows that more than $5 billion in royalty payments were made over the same period last year to landowners in the state of North Dakota, America’s No. 2 oil-producing state – more than $14 million every day.

There’s been a lot of media (and blog) coverage on the oil booms in North Dakota and Texas, with a lot of attention on the jobs and businesses being created due to America’s shale energy revolution, but there hasn’t always been a lot of attention paid to the “staggering wealth” that is being created from the billions of dollars in royalties being paid to the fortunate landowners in oil and gas-producing states. The shale revolution has undoubtedly created thousands of new millionaires in Texas, North Dakota and Pennsylvania since the shale revolution started five years ago, and that’s another reason that the local economies in dozens of America’s oil and gas patches are booming. Welcome to America’s millionaire-creating energy miracle.

[twa]

Make the world a cleaner place and improve our economic situation at home

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21572769-if-barack-obama-wants-cleaner-world-and-richer-america-he-should-allow-natural-gas?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/betteroutthanin

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/03/05/shell-to-push-natural-gas-for-trains-vehicles/

Moving to establish itself as the leading U.S. provider of cutting edge fuel for trucks, trains and vessels, Royal Dutch Shell will announce plans Tuesday for two new plants it says will double the nation’s supply of liquefied natural gas.

The oil giant’s planned facilities in Louisiana and the Canadian province of Ontario will liquefy and supply natural gas to truck stops, railroads and waterways, according to materials reviewed in advance by the Houston Chronicle.

Shell did not disclose the cost of the projects, but said the effort is aimed at advancing the use of natural gas and becoming a dominant force in the emerging transportation market. Natural gas must be compressed or liquefied to be practical in mobile fuel tanks.

“We see LNG as tomorrow’s fuel available today and we want to be seen and act as the leader in this space,” said James Burns, Shell’s general manager overseeing its liquefied natural gas for transportation business.

[twa]

Good fracking news

http://news.yahoo.com/epa-methane-report-further-divides-161201451.html

The Environmental Protection Agency has dramatically lowered its estimate of how much of a potent heat-trapping gas leaks during natural gas production, in a shift with major implications for a debate that has divided environmentalists: Does the recent boom in fracking help or hurt the fight against climate change?

Oil and gas drilling companies had pushed for the change, but there have been differing scientific estimates of the amount of methane that leaks from wells, pipelines and other facilities during production and delivery. Methane is the main component of natural gas.

The new EPA data is "kind of an earthquake" in the debate over drilling, said Michael Shellenberger, the president of the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental group based in Oakland, Calif. "This is great news for anybody concerned about the climate and strong proof that existing technologies can be deployed to reduce methane leaks."

The scope of the EPA's revision was vast. In a mid-April report on greenhouse emissions, the agency now says that tighter pollution controls instituted by the industry resulted in an average annual decrease of 41.6 million metric tons of methane emissions from 1990 through 2010, or more than 850 million metric tons overall. That's about a 20 percent reduction from previous estimates. The agency converts the methane emissions into their equivalent in carbon dioxide, following standard scientific practice.

The EPA revisions came even though natural gas production has grown by nearly 40 percent since 1990. The industry has boomed in recent years, thanks to a stunning expansion of drilling in previously untapped areas because of the use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which injects sand, water and chemicals to break apart rock and free the gas inside.

Experts on both sides of the debate say the leaks can be controlled by fixes such as better gaskets, maintenance and monitoring. Such fixes are also thought to be cost-effective, since the industry ends up with more product to sell.

...

"The methane 'leak' claim just got a lot more difficult for opponents" of natural gas, noted Steve Everley, with Energy In Depth, an industry-funded group.

[PeterMP]

Good fracking news

http://news.yahoo.com/epa-methane-report-further-divides-161201451.html

The Environmental Protection Agency has dramatically lowered its estimate of how much of a potent heat-trapping gas leaks during natural gas production, in a shift with major implications for a debate that has divided environmentalists: Does the recent boom in fracking help or hurt the fight against climate change?

This is from a paper published in 2012 before the change:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/04/02/1202407109.full.pdf+html

One the EPA's numbers were a little odd:

"EPA’s re-ported uncertainty appears small considering that its current va-

lue is double the prior estimate, which was itself twice as high as

the previously accepted amount (9)."

Essentailly, the EPA was doubling the number without much data and simultaneously saying that they were sure of the number with a high degree of certainity.

And then:

"EPA’s rule requiring natural gas industry disclosure of GHG emissions

should begin to produce data in 2012, though it is unlikely that

most uncertainties will be resolved and possible systematic biases

eliminated."

So a 20% reduction off of a number that was doubled twice in the previous two estimates based on pretty preliminary data isn't going to get you very far and is still above what industry was claiming.

That paper put the EPA estimates in terms of % per methane produced:

"The EPA’s latest estimate of the amount of CH4

released because of leaks and venting in the natural gas network between production wells

and the local distribution network is about 570 billion cubic feet

for 2009, which corresponds to 2.4% of gross U.S. natural gas

production (1.9–3.1% at a 95% confidence level)"

So a 20% reduction from 2.4% is going to get you to something like 1.92%, but industry has thrown a fit over a paper that says emissions from fracking where fracking is only part of that 1.92% and produces more venting than normal processes at 1.4-3.6%

http://www.sustainablefuture.cornell.edu/news/attachments/Howarth-EtAl-2011.pdf

"Our conservative estimate of 1.4% to 3.6% leakage of gas during transmission, storage, and distribution is remarkably similar to the 2.5% “best estimate” used by Hayhoe et al."

Now, it is true that even more recently there have been studies done by people at the NOAA that indicate even more leaking, but if in 2011 that 1.4-3.5% was a bad estimate for your worse approach to be claiming victory after the EPA decides on a total of something like 1.92% seems odd to me.

[twa]

sore loser

[twa]

Insourcing jobs for a change

http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/08/news/economy/oil-companies-america/

Here's an intriguing switch in the energy market: U.S. oil firms have been selling off their assets overseas and investing the money in America's domestic fields.

Last year ConocoPhillips (COP, Fortune 500) announced plans to sell its stake in Kazakhstan's Kashagan oil field -- the largest energy project in the world -- for $5 billion. It was just one of at least six major foreign sales last year for Conoco, which totaled nearly $11 billion, according to industry data provider PLS.

Much of that money is being redirected to investments Conoco has in Texas' Eagle Ford Shale and North Dakota's Bakken Shale, according to PLS Managing Director Brian Lidsky.

A Conoco spokesman confirmed the sales, and said the money was being used for general corporate purposes and to "capture new opportunities for the future."

American oil firm Hess (HES, Fortune 500) did something similar, selling over $4 billion of assets in the U.K., Azerbaijan and Russia. A company spokesman said that money went to a number of different initiatives, including paying down debt and building up the company's balance sheet. The spokesman said Hess invested $3.1 billion in North Dakota in 2012, where the company boosted its oil production by 55%.

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/05/10/exxon-to-build-10-billion-u-s-lng-export-plant-with-qatar/

Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), the largest energy company by market value, signed an agreement with Qatar Petroleum International to move forward with construction of a $10 billion natural gas export terminal in Texas.

The project will involve installing liquefaction equipment at an existing import facility in Sabine Pass, Texas, according to an e-mailed statement today from Golden Pass Products LLC, a subsidiary formed by the two companies. It won permission last year to export the fuel to nations with free-trade agreements with the U.S. and is awaiting approval to send the fuel to all other countries.

[twa]

Obama Has Been Dealt A Spectacular Energy Hand: He Should Play It

 

Just a decade ago, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan was warning that a

natural gas shortage was wrecking U.S. industry and that LNG import

terminals were essential. Now, businesses want to retrofit those

terminals for exports, but, so far, the government has approved just two, limited to shipping a total of 3.4 billion cubic feet a day of gas, or less than 5 percent of current U.S. production.

There is no excuse for any more delay in approving all gas export

applications – just as there is no excuse for the ban on exporting crude

or the long-running drama of approving the Keystone XL pipeline between

Canada and Nebraska, now at four years and counting.

These steps will not merely boost the U.S. economy but also serve our

national security interests by making other nations less dependent on

Middle East and Russian petroleum.

Fracking is creating “the biggest change in energy in almost 100 years – a revolution,” says Philip Verleger of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Production

of shale gas has exploded five-fold in just four years. And that’s just

a taste of what could happen if imagination, technology, and capital

are unleashed by the man in Washington, who, sitting on a royal flush, can’t seem to play his cards.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesglassman/2013/05/23/play-the-energy-card/

[twa]

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/05/31/redeployment-battlefield-engines-take-on-oil-field-mission/ Redeployment: Battlefield engines take on oil field mission

FRANKLIN, La — Deep in the swamplands of Louisiana, out of a clearing

in the dense foliage that covers this coastal stretch, the roar of jet

engines echoes across the landscape.

It is the sound of military aircraft — an escalating hum that evokes images of acceleration, takeoff and things on the move.

But these engines — which once transported troops in Iraq and Afghanistan — now move water. Millions of gallons of water.

They are a part of what two Louisiana companies believe will be the

next step in the high-powered, fuel-intensive business of hydraulic

fracturing — the technique that has created an American oil and gas

boom.

Using retired military helicopter engines, Green Field Energy

Services and Turbine Power Technology are building pressure pump systems

that are key to that most important service in modern oil and gas

drilling while doing what no competing pumps can: Run completely on

low-cost natural gas.

Their products have added to an intensifying engineering race among

several companies vying to offer oil field machines that can use natural

gas instead of diesel.

 

The key to the effort lies at the heart of the companies’ Louisiana

plant, where stacks of green, steel canisters hold powerful battlefield

engines that came from the mountains of Afghanistan and deserts of Iraq

to this land of alligators and shrimp boats on the nation’s southern

edge.

 

 

....

Its engines are smaller than comparable diesel setups of similar

power, meaning that they can reduce the physical footprint of a well

pad, Moreno said. And natural gas engines emit less of the greenhouse

gas carbon dioxide than diesels.

[twa]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertbradley/2013/06/17/the-american-oil-gas-industry-is-rescuing-the-obama-economy/

 

The American Oil & Gas Industry Is Rescuing The Obama Economy

Noted expert Daniel Yergin concurs.
“Abundant low-cost energy is stimulating a revival of manufacturing in
the U.S. as well as well as increased American economic
competitiveness,” he states, countering what otherwise is “a time of
stubbornly high unemployment.”

        

Barack Obama's Texas Swing: 165 Miles From Job Creation

 

Yes, technologically unlocked oil and gas has created an
energy revolution and industrial bright spot in the otherwise dim Obama
era. By 2020, according
to Yergin, shale gas alone is expected to support 4 million jobs
(versus 1.7 million today). And the United States is expected to surpass
Saudi Arabia as the world’s leading oil exporter, according
to the International Energy Agency. Natural gas, meanwhile, is on
course to overtake coal as the second largest source of energy worldwide
by 2025.

[twa]

The Wall Street Journal, which reported on the export trend last week, said the United States is on track this year to be a net exporter of refined products for the first time in 62 years.

on a related note the price of NG should be bumping up some with limits on exports being relaxed, some very nice market prices overseas as well

http://www.lngglobal.com/latest/dominion-cove-point-receives-authorization-to-export-lng-to-non-free-trade-countries.html

Dominion Cove Point LNG is the fourth U.S. Department of Energy company authorized to export domestically produced LNG to countries that do not have a Free Trade Agreement. The others are; Sabine Pass Liquefaction, LLC (Cheniere Energy), Freeport LNG Expansion, L.P. and FLNG Liquefaction, LLC and Lake Charles Exports, LLC.

it is gonna be nice to see more jobs and a lower trade deficit ...and govt revenue

[PokerPacker]

Anyone have thoughts on Thorium-based nuclear power? Supposedly safer (can't melt-down), can't be weaponized (which is why we chose Uranium over Thorium decades ago), orders of magnitude less nuclear waste, and quite abundant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power

[twa]

there are a lot of issues with thorium that get glossed over

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Current-and-Future-Generation/Thorium/#References

 

there are a number of countries pursuing the technology ,and have been....there is a thread about it specifically somewhere if you can find it

[twa]

Yep, and it is hitting the coal industry incredibly hard, the partisans scream that it is about Obama's EPA stopping new coal plants, but that ignores the fact that existing factories etc have switched from coal to the MUCH cheaper gas.

 

seen the new EPA regs?

 

coal is far cheaper than natural gas 

 

the price of NG should be going up since export controls have FINALLY loosened....and look more jobs

Boom in energy production sends US shipyards into overdrive

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/09/20/boom-in-natural-gas-production-sends-us-shipyards-into-overdrive/#ixzz2fXqFDxAL

Boom in energy production sends US shipyards into overdrive

 

[twa]

Royal Dutch Shell has picked a site in Louisiana for a plant costing at least $12.5 billion that would turn natural gas into diesel, jet fuel and other liquids, the Louisiana governor’s office announced Tuesday.

Shell said the project, which is no sure thing, could help to harness more domestic natural gas to make transportation fuels. The company will continue to consider the option before making an investment decision at the site in Ascension Parish, Louisiana, according to the news release.

The plant would offer the benefit of displacing oil used to make fuels and other products and lowering emissions, since Shell says liquids produced from natural gas burn cleaner than those produced from oil.

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/09/24/shell-selects-louisiana-for-possible-12-5-billion-plant/?cmpid=hpts

It also would create at least 740 direct jobs with an average salary of $100,000, as well as at least 3,900 indirect jobs, according to the announcement. Louisiana State University estimates the project would have an economic impact of $77.6 billion over the construction period and the first 15 years of operation of the plant, according to the press release.

“Today’s announcement is a historic new opportunity for Shell to potentially expand its manufacturing operations onshore in a world-class, gas-to-liquids facility in Ascension Parish on the Mississippi River,” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said in a statement. “Here in the heart of Louisiana’s world-scale petrochemical industries, the Gulf Coast GTL project would give thousands more of our people an opportunity for a rewarding career right here at home.”

[twa]

Reversing a 50 yr old trend that has bled us of capital and jobs

 

 

 

A perfect storm of sorts is leading some Western energy companies to step back from investments and operations in the Middle East. Companies see increased risk in the region because of the turmoil and violence following the Arab Spring. And, advances in technology have made it easier to produce oil in North America.

 

http://www.npr.org/2013/09/27/226716502/will-the-americas-become-the-world-capital-of-energy

 

URI BERLINER, BYLINE: For more than a half a century, Western oil companies sought their fortunes in the Middle East. They were lured by vast proven oil reserves and low production costs. But now, instead of binding themselves to the region, some Western energy companies are looking for the exits.

AMY MYERS JAFFE: Well, I see a decreased interest in investing in the Middle East.

BERLINER: That's Amy Myers Jaffe. She leads in energy and sustainability program at the University of California, Davis. In 2011, she wrote an article for "Foreign Policy" magazine. The headline: "The America's, Not the Middle East Will Be the World Capital of Energy." Jaffe says what she saw two years ago, it's happening even more today.

JAFFE: Companies are seeing higher risk in the Middle East. They are having to withdraw their personnel because of unexpected events, and I do think you're going to see more and more companies spending more money in North America and less money in the Middle East.

BERLINER: In August, Apache, an American oil exploration company, sold assets in Egypt to the Chinese energy company Sino-Pak. Now Occidental Petroleum is said to be seeking a buyer for a stake in its Middle East operations.

JAFFE: You know, a decade ago, they felt the future of the company was going to be doing enhanced oil recovery out in the Middle East. They're now reversing that strategy in considering whether to sell out of their holdings or spin off their holdings in the Middle East.

BERLINER: If you talk to energy analysts, they cite three factors for this historic change: politics, technology and price. First, politics. Oil and gas analyst Fadel Gheit tracks global energy for Oppenheimer & Company. He says the hopes of the Arab spring have not been achieved.

FADEL GHEIT: Unfortunately, it became a lot more violent, a lot more bloody than most companies had expected. Started with Libya and moved to Egypt and Iraq, and obviously, Syria is now an international crisis.

BERLINER: Energy companies are worried about the safety of their employees in the Middle East. Regimes are unstable, deals can be broken in an instant, supplies disrupted. Jaffe says these political risks make the region less appealing.

[TradeTheBeal!]

Reversing a 50 yr old trend that has bled us of capital and jobs

 

 

 

A perfect storm of sorts is leading some Western energy companies to step back from investments and operations in the Middle East. Companies see increased risk in the region because of the turmoil and violence following the Arab Spring. And, advances in technology have made it easier to produce oil in North America.

 

http://www.npr.org/2013/09/27/226716502/will-the-americas-become-the-world-capital-of-energy

 

URI BERLINER, BYLINE: For more than a half a century, Western oil companies sought their fortunes in the Middle East. They were lured by vast proven oil reserves and low production costs. But now, instead of binding themselves to the region, some Western energy companies are looking for the exits.

AMY MYERS JAFFE: Well, I see a decreased interest in investing in the Middle East.

BERLINER: That's Amy Myers Jaffe. She leads in energy and sustainability program at the University of California, Davis. In 2011, she wrote an article for "Foreign Policy" magazine. The headline: "The America's, Not the Middle East Will Be the World Capital of Energy." Jaffe says what she saw two years ago, it's happening even more today.

JAFFE: Companies are seeing higher risk in the Middle East. They are having to withdraw their personnel because of unexpected events, and I do think you're going to see more and more companies spending more money in North America and less money in the Middle East.

BERLINER: In August, Apache, an American oil exploration company, sold assets in Egypt to the Chinese energy company Sino-Pak. Now Occidental Petroleum is said to be seeking a buyer for a stake in its Middle East operations.

JAFFE: You know, a decade ago, they felt the future of the company was going to be doing enhanced oil recovery out in the Middle East. They're now reversing that strategy in considering whether to sell out of their holdings or spin off their holdings in the Middle East.

BERLINER: If you talk to energy analysts, they cite three factors for this historic change: politics, technology and price. First, politics. Oil and gas analyst Fadel Gheit tracks global energy for Oppenheimer & Company. He says the hopes of the Arab spring have not been achieved.

FADEL GHEIT: Unfortunately, it became a lot more violent, a lot more bloody than most companies had expected. Started with Libya and moved to Egypt and Iraq, and obviously, Syria is now an international crisis.

BERLINER: Energy companies are worried about the safety of their employees in the Middle East. Regimes are unstable, deals can be broken in an instant, supplies disrupted. Jaffe says these political risks make the region less appealing.

 

[twa]

I am hitting the pipe as we speak,my blonde isn't that young though.....need to trade her in on twins

 

[twa]

I am hitting the pipe as we speak,my blonde isn't that young though.....need to trade her in on twins

 

 

 

btw

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-entine/shale-gas-study-showing-m_b_3984066.html

Shale Gas Study Showing Minimal Methane Leakage Exposes Rifts in Enviro Movement

[twa]

Shale overload pushing exports to Asia to new highs

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/10/22/shale-overload-to-push-exports-to-asia-to-new-highs/

 

U.S. exports of natural gas liquids, already at a record amid surging output from shale deposits, are poised to quadruple by 2020 as the expansion of the Panama Canal cuts shipping costs to Asia.

Deliveries of the fuels to foreign buyers averaged 555,000 barrels a day in July, the most in U.S. government data going back to 1981. China’s imports of propane, butane and isobutane, with uses as varied as home heating, chemical manufacturing and refrigeration, jumped 23 percent in August from a year earlier, customs data show.

The Panama Canal expansion, slated for completion in 2015, will allow the transit of large tankers and put costs to ship U.S. gas liquids to Asia on a par with deliveries from the Middle East, according to Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. U.S. exports would jump to 20 million metric tons by 2020 from the current 5 million tons, making the country the world’s largest exporter of those fuels, ahead of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Bernstein said.

“The Panama Canal widening is definitely a positive for propane and butane producers in the U.S. who want to get rid of product,” Bradley Olsen, director of midstream research at Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. in Houston, said in an Oct. 17 phone interview. “We’re going to be in a situation where the U.S. is effectively increasing supply on the global market by about 30 percent in the course of three or four years.”

[twa]

BP opens Houston home for massive supercomputer

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/10/22/bp-starts-up-new-computers-to-search-for-oil/?cmpid=businesshcat

HOUSTON – BP opened a computing center on Tuesday that it says is home to the world’s largest supercomputer for commercial research, part of the oil giant’s efforts to out-geek its competitors in finding more crude.

“This is a facility that other nerds are going to be quite jealous of,” said Keith Gray, BP’s manager of high-performance computing.

The computers in the center have a combined 2.2 petaflops of processing power, which means they can make 2,200 trillion calculations per second.

The added speed will help BP basically cut in half the time it takes to process data from seismic surveys, in some cases from one week to half a week, Gray said.

The computers also will help with future data challenges, said Jackie Mutschler, head of upstream technology for BP.

“If you want to drill the best well possible, make the best business decision, you want to get that data as quickly as you can and you want it to be high quality,” she said.

 

Advanced computers have played a major role in the current oil boom, helping geophysicists find and analyze underground reserves faster and with more certainty. Recent leaps in computing capabilities have helped mathematicians, software engineers and geophysicists find new ways to analyze seismic data, giving them clear pictures of underground areas that they couldn’t see before.

[twa]

No boom in Nevada, feds say NO

 

http://www.reviewjournal.com/opinion/federal-control-means-no-oil

 

Federal control means no oil

 

In other words, Eastern Nevada could be sitting on one of the most energy-rich rock formations in the entire world. Around the time of the updated estimate, one oil developer told Las Vegas reporters, “You have the richest largest organic mature rock source anyplace in the world except Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. … There is no doubt, I can assure you 100 percent, you are sitting on some of the greatest wealth in this country and the world.”

However, before oil and gas developers can begin realizing this vast energy potential for Nevada, a major obstacle must be overcome: The Chainman Shale formation lies almost entirely under land controlled by the federal government. Without federal permission, these resources cannot be tapped.

The federal Bureau of Land Management, which controls most of the land in Nevada, occasionally auctions off mineral rights for small swaths of land. Mostly, however, it has blocked large-scale energy development in Nevada.

In early 2012, the BLM was scheduled to auction 75 Nevada oil and gas leases covering 133,000 acres. At the last moment, however, the agency reduced the auction to 42 leases covering only 72,000 acres. According to BLM officials, these lands included sage-grouse habitat, and the bird could conceivably, one day, be considered “endangered.”

“The BLM will do our part to avoid a listing of the sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act,” Amy Lueders, BLM director in Nevada, told the press. “Deferring parcels from oil and gas lease sales is just one step we are taking as we look closely at the many activities that can affect habitat important to sage grouse.”

However, modern oil and gas development — which uses new slant drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques — leaves a very small footprint on the Earth’s surface. It is the large facilities to produce energy from industrial wind turbines and solar panels, which BLM continuously approves, that encumber far more land and therefore are more destructive to sage-grouse habitat.

That contrast is particularly relevant in light of a new analysis from Dr. Timothy J. Considine, a professor of energy economics at the University of Wyoming. He shows that development of the Chainman Shale on federally owned lands would result in $5.2 billion in economic impact over the next decade while creating 21,797 new jobs.

In addition, developing the Chainman Shale would yield a net positive for public revenue — channeling more than $100 million in direct taxes to state coffers and another $100 million to federal coffers. This is not to mention the indirect tax revenue that could be received when newly employed individuals begin paying sales, property and other taxes. Or the benefit of lower oil and natural gas prices for Nevadans.

[twa]

even those of us who's family walked away from oil benefit (not near as much as those that didn't  )

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidblackmon/2014/01/09/oil-gas-boom-2014-a-great-time-to-be-a-texan/
 

from the comments

Never before have I seen so much Free Education given away . A one year certificate , a 2 year associates , or a 4 year Bachelors or Engineering Degree . Just meet the criteria and it is yours with normally with a 90% chance of getting a great job. But you still must be smart enough to choose a Career that is in demand not some wasteful degree .

[twa]

The shale revolution: Texas’ export turnaround spreads to rest of U.S.

 

http://www.dallasnews.com/business/columnists/mitchell-schnurman/20140120-texas-export-boom-spreads-to-u.s..ece

 

Rising exports are lifting the U.S. economy, and the feeling should be familiar. Texas has been riding an export wave for a decade.

This month, the Commerce Department reported that U.S. exports hit a record high in November, cutting the trade deficit to its lowest level since 2009. The strong gains prompted economists to predict higher growth for the nation and more momentum for expansion.

No surprise that the oil and gas boom was a key contributor.

America exported $13.3 billion worth of petroleum products in November. That’s 23 percent more than a year earlier and almost three times as much as in 2009.

At the same time, we’re importing less oil, in part because cars are more efficient. Petroleum imports in November declined 15 percent, following a double-digit drop the year before.

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.

Thompson listed 11 new plants and refinery expansions, with 10 in Texas and Louisiana. The projects range from $350 million to $1.7 billion each, so the impact on construction jobs is also significant. Pipelines and storage capacity must be built, too, he said.

While this benefits Texas and the U.S., the gains tilt heavily toward the Houston area. Exports from Houston topped $110 billion in 2012, according to the Commerce Department. That’s No. 1 in the nation, ahead of the New York area and well ahead of Los Angeles.

Houston exports were also four times those of Dallas-Fort Worth. Dallas exports grew 40 percent from 2009 to 2012 and approached $28 billion. That’s not shabby, but it’s not close to Houston: up 67 percent on a much larger base.

North Texas has benefited from the Barnett Shale, where natural gas drilling took off about a decade ago. But investment and jobs have relocated to places with more oil reserves, such as the Eagle Ford shale near San Antonio.

San Antonio had about half the level of exports as Dallas-Fort Worth in 2012. But its total exports tripled in just three years, tracking the boom in oil and gas.

One university study said the Eagle Ford supported 116,000 jobs and generated $61 billion in economic impact in 2012.

“It’s done more to alleviate poverty than any aid program in San Antonio,” said Bill Day, a spokesman for Valero.