Although the current low oil price is bankrupting many producers and explorers in North Dakota and elsewhere, and many rigs are now standing idle with jobs being lost, there has only been a very modest fall in production.
That is because the technology for getting oil out is improving rapidly and the cost is falling fast, so some producers can break even at $30 or even $20 a barrel and it takes fewer rigs to generate more oil. It is one of the cruel features of innovation that it usually benefits the consumers more than the inventors.
This means the shale industry can now put a lid on oil prices in future. Aguilera and Radetzki argue that not only is the US shale industry still in its infancy, but that there is another revolution on the way: when the price is right, conventional oil fields can now be redrilled with the new techniques developed for shale, producing another surge of supply from fields once thought depleted. They also expect that other countries — beginning with Australia, Argentina, China and Mexico — are ripe to join the technology revolution begun in American shale.
Image credit. This is how bees are thought to perceive the below sight.
Somewhat Reasonable explains how bee facts change, while Green agendas do not:
The deadline imposed by President Obama’s [pollinator] task force memo passed months ago, and yet the White House has been strangely silent on the issue of pesticides and honeybee health. What initially looked like an easy lame-duck giveaway to green groups has turned out to be factually complicated.
Long before the White House weighed in, anti-insecticide activists promoted claims that honeybees were headed for extinction because of pesticides, specifically neonics – unless the government banned them. Time magazine picked up their refrain, devoting a long cover story to the scary prospect of “a world without bees.” Other news stories uncritically repeated the end-of-bees assertions. One-third of the food we eat could disappear without bees to pollinate crops, they proclaimed. But there was a problem.
The narrative turned out to be false, extensive evidence now demonstrates – and inconvenient truths had gotten in the way of another slam-dunk Executive Branch edict.
So there is no recent pollinator crisis that can be laid at the door of neo-nics. The reverse in fact: farmers who cannot now use neo-nics are using pyrethroids instead. These cause more collateral damage to insects other than pests because they are sprayed on rather than locked inside the plant as seed dressing.
If you would prefer farming with fewer pesticides, there’s a simple way to achieve it. No, not organic but genetically modified crops. Bees thrive in them.
I love Nebraskan food. It is amply available in supermarkets in Germany. US-American meat tends to be the best there is over here, even ahead of South American imports.
Pierre Desrochers sums up much of what is wrong with locavorism, the fetishisation of local agriculture as the magic bullet that will solve our food problems.
Did you know, Nebraska's official name used to be "The Tree Planter's State?"
Explains Senator Laura Ebke in her fun fact of the day: "Nebraska has had two official state names: the "Tree Planters' State" and the "Cornhusker State" Nebraska was designated the "Tree Planters' State" by legislative action in 1895. Nebraska's claim to tree-planting fame includes the founding of Arbor Day in 1872 by J. Sterling Morton of Nebraska City, the Timber Culture Act of U.S. Sen. Phineas W. Hitchcock in 1873 and the millions of trees planted by early settlers as windbreaks, woodlots and orchards. The 1945 Legislature changed the official state name to the "Cornhusker State.""
Freedom means progress, thus freedom means an environment more adequate to humankind - and there cannot be any other standard for judging environmental quality.
Pierre Desrochers reminds us:
Last month [written in November, 2006] our southern neighbours welcomed the arrival (or birth) of their three-hundredth million citizen. While the news should have been welcomed, a number of environmental activists and journalists viewed it as cause for concern. They had no reasons to, because a rising population in a prosperous economy is entirely consistent with a higher quality of life and improved environmental amenities. As Dan Griswold of the Cato Institute pointed out, even though the U.S. population is today four times larger than it was a century ago, during this time period "life expectancy at birth has grown from 48 to 78 years, infant mortality rates have plunged, a host of deadly diseases have been conquered, and the air we breathe and the water we drink are far cleaner than when we were a less populous country."
The idea that economic growth generates pollution problems, but simultaneously provides the means to clean up most of them and even to improve on earlier conditions, is probably too counterintuitive to be readily accepted by most people. It is nonetheless backed up by much historical evidence. A brief discussion of the causes underlying forest regrowth and improvements in air and water quality in advanced economies can be illustrative in this respect.
Take, for instance, the case of forest cover:
It is a common misconception that deforestation is a recent occurrence, with the bulk of it taking place in the tropical regions of the world in the last five decades. As Williams (2002) points out, possibly as much as nine-tenths of all deforestation occurred before 1950, as people cleared forests for shelter, food, warmth and to create a multitude of implements. Beginning in some European countries in the middle of the nineteenth century, however, these trends have long been reversed in virtually all advanced economies and in some developing economies (including China and India). Among other factors explaining this rebirth of forests in over fifty countries is the fact that farmers and foresters became increasingly efficient in their capacity to grow more food and fiber on ever-decreasing areas, with the resulting abandonment of pasture and cropland paving the way to afforestation and reforestation.
Meanwhile, wood users became increasingly adept at extracting more value out of their input, while development of substitute products, ranging from electricity to plastics and metals, reduced the demand for wood (Ausubel, 2000; Williams, 1989). Rudel et al. (2004) also point out that economic development and urbanization has created better paying non-farming jobs in urban areas, causing a number of agricultural workers to abandon their land. In places with stable or growing populations and little ability to import forest products, continued declines in forest cover spur increases in prices of forest products, causing landowners to plant trees instead of crops or pasture grasses. Disastrous floods in deforested watersheds have also motivated government officials in developing, but now prosperous, countries to implement reforestation programs.
Kelvin Kemm asks what are the lessons learned from Fukushima? Once you pierce through the propaganda to the facts, the answer is: nuclear energy is amazingly safe. Indeed, thanks to events that have occurred at Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear power has been proven to be much safer than anyone had previously imagined.
I voted present on H R 3, Northern Route Approval Act. The Keystone XL pipeline is a private project owned by TransCanada Corporation. This bill improperly exempts TransCanada Corporation—and no other company—from laws that require pipeline owners and operators to obtain certain government permits and approvals.
I support construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, and holding it up for over four years (with no end in sight) for political reasons is wrong. It's improper, however, for Congress to write a bill that names and benefits one private project, while doing nothing to address the underlying problems that allowed such delays to occur. The Constitution gives Congress the power "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations," but the Rule of Law requires that legislation be of general, not specific, applicability. A proper bill would address the circumstances that allow *any* such project to be held up for political reasons, not just Keystone XL.
I was reluctant to publish the below clip portraying the beautiful Sandhills of Nebraska, as I am in no position to know what the involved parties especially WWF stand for politically, and whether I like their position concerning this issue or not. But having declared my initial agnosticism, my genuine interest in this fascinating area of Nebraska and my desire to gradually understand the issue more fully, I feel I can publish the clip without giving the impression of partisanship. If anything, I begin to understand , how little I know about Keystone XL.
At any rate, the film gives you a sense of what a great place Nebraska is.
Keystone certainly represents an interesting case in terms of studying how people try (or fail) to define and establish the public interest - a topic that preoccupies me at the moment.
Remarkably, much of the (national) debate over Keystone XL entirely ignores locally Nebraskan concerns, focussing amongst other things on world climate or US energy independence.
The environmental arguments, even the ones referring to local issues, do not convince me of the presence of dimensions of danger that merit a calling-off of the project. In a country criss-crossed by pipelines that never have brought about serious environmental damage, I see no reason why we should not expect further progress and wholesome business in that field.
So far I seem to be looking at the customary pattern: The environmentalist is typically ignoring risk-return trade-offs (because her hidden agenda is full of absolutes in the form of unsubstantiated foregone conclusions), feeling victorious in an argument simply by stating "x could happen," usually without offering facts to back up the concrete and reasonably substantiated processes, proportions and consequences of the presaged events of impairment.
Of course, I am open to new insights and better arguments.
Where I am still pretty much in the dark is the entire vast and complicated subject-matter of eminent domain, whose careful study - especially of the laws and legal practices in Nebraska - will probably take care at least of the frivolous claims of crony capitalism that are so easily bandied about. The way the project has been dealt with so far does not exactly suggest that a certain company is "wagging" government.
Of course, I am open to new insights and better arguments.
But the eminent domain issue may well contain very weighty and knotty problems - many of which may not be visible to the national eye, but only to him who studies the local circumstances carefully.
More generally, consider that in the case of Keystone XL a private economic decsion may turn into one of high public relevance - or would you be willing to apply eminent domain in favour of a project that according to your calculations is not viable? Tricky.
What worries me far more than the prospect of TransCanada "wagging" the governments of Nebraska and the USA is that the likelihood of destroying a project like Keystone by slander, crucible-type of malice and political obstructionism is as high as it is, presenting a massive handicap that stands in the way of getting a complex business project properly accomplished, thanks to a massive nationwide industry geared towards stopping projects like Keystone as an absolute aim in its own right, the majority of whose vast constituency being not fact-driven but entranced with a false faith.
In an awkward way, is it not a case of abuse of eminent domain, when a local project gets effectively prohibited by a national audience driven by an agenda not shared by those most affected by such remote interference?
Of course, I am open to new insights and better arguments.
The US economy has a competitive intensity problem, and [a] decline in startups is at its core. Startups are the straw that stirs the drink. They generate new innovation (and new jobs) and force incumbents to improve or die. They change everything, creating a healthier, more vibrant economy in the process.
[...]
In the US economic ecosystem, startups are wolves. And we need more of them, and the creative destruction they bring, to transform our stagnating economy.
“The best way to get Keystone XL built is to make it irrelevant ...”
Via Bloomberg:
From the Canadian perspective, Keystone has become a tractor mired in an interminably muddy field.
In this period of national gloom comes an idea -- a crazy-sounding notion, or maybe, actually, an epiphany. How about an all-Canadian route to liberate that oil sands crude from Alberta’s isolation and America’s fickleness? Canada’s own environmental and aboriginal politics are holding up a shorter and cheaper pipeline to the Pacific that would supply a shipping portal to oil-thirsty Asia.
Instead, go east, all the way to the Atlantic.
The source, including a useful synoptic map of the new pipeline project.
Since water is one of the vital ingredients for life on Earth, scientists want to know how it got here. One theory is that the water in our solar system was created in the chemical afterbirth of the Sun. If that were the case, it would suggest that water might only be common around certain stars that form in certain ways. But a new study, published today in Science, suggests that at least some of Earth’s water actually existed before the Sun was born -- and that it came from interstellar space.
That’s certainly something to ponder the next time you drink a glass of water. But the discovery is also cool because it means water -- and maybe life -- may be ubiquitous throughout the galaxy.
As for us earthlings, the inestimable Coyote has a lot to complain about the way in which we deal with the precious resource.
Virtually every product and service we purchase has its supply and demand match by prices. Higher prices tell buyers they should conserve, and tell suppliers to expend extra effort finding more.
Except for water.
Every water shortage you ever read about is the result of refusing to let prices float to dynamically match supply and demand. And more specifically, are the result of a populist political desire to keep water prices below what would be a market clearing price (or perhaps more accurately, a price that maintains reservoir levels both above and below ground at target levels). [...]
Commenting on a 100,000 prize to help solve the water shortage in Arizona, the Coyte notes:
I will say that it is nice to see supply side solutions suggested rather than the usual demand side command and control and guilt-tripping. But how can we possibly evaluate new water supply solutions like desalinization if we don't know the real price of water? Accurate prices are critical for evaluating large investments.
If I find the time, I am going to tilt at a windmill here and submit an entry. They want graphics of your communications and advertising materials -- I'll just show a copy of a water bill with a higher price on it. It costs zero (since bills are already going out) and unlike advertising, it reaches everyone and has direct impact on behavior. If you want to steal my idea and submit, you are welcome to because 1. The more the merrier and 2. Intelligent market-based solutions are never ever going to win because the judges are the people who benefit from the current authoritarian system.
PS- the site has lots of useful data for those of you who want to play authoritarian planner -- let some users have all the water they want, while deciding that other uses are frivolous! Much better you decide than let users decide for themselves using accurate prices.
We actually have no shortage of water in Arizona. Rather, we have too much government. The web of subsidies and regulations of water use creates a false shortage.
Again, let me emphasise that participation in political competition, political engagement, and hence the work of politicians are of the essence in defending the system of liberty that underlies our civilization.
Just ponder these words of a politician:
…However, I leave the post with great misgivings about the power and irresponsibility of - to coin a phrase - the Green Blob. By this I mean the mutually supportive network of environmental pressure groups, renewable energy companies and some public officials who keep each other well supplied with lavish funds, scare stories and green tape. This tangled triangle of unelected busybodies claims to have the interests of the planet and the countryside at heart, but it is increasingly clear that it is focusing on the wrong issues and doing real harm while profiting handsomely. Local conservationists on the ground do wonderful work to protect and improve wild landscapes, as do farmers, rural businesses and ordinary people. They are a world away from the highly paid globe-trotters of the Green Blob who besieged me with their self-serving demands, many of which would have harmed the natural environment. I soon realised that the greens and their industrial and bureaucratic allies are used to getting things their own way. I received more death threats in a few months at Defra than I ever did as secretary of state for Northern Ireland…
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