DRILLING QUIETLY GOING ON

Don't be discouraged, fm. Many of us are reading, even if we don't pitch in.

thanx. All I wish is to have the Commonwealth of PA adopt the normal standard extraction fee that is in effect for ALL the other states that have oil and gas drilling. The drillers come in, the state gives them RIGHTS to drill on our public land FUCKIN FREE, and then when the drillers are messing up the environment, we let em slip through with minimal control.

Our governor is a traitor to the state. He will probably get some big job in the oil and gas industry when we pitch him out of office in 3.75 years.

All the resources, like water and coal are resources of the COMMONWEALTH. Even the governors tea bag supporters are starting to get it. No matter what we charge as a fee for drilling and cleanup, the gas companies arent going anywhere else. The gas is underneath our state and isnt moving anywhere.
Hell, in NY state, they just shut the door on all drilling. Im not in favor of that but Im in favor of holding the drillers feet to the fiore and make them pay theior way.

The governor claims that they pay"Net Income taxes". The fact is that they arent m,aking any income yet, they are exploring and its all an expense so they are getting huuuge tax breaks to begin with.

I know you guys charge a fee in Texas , Ive looked up the fee structures for all the states and Louisiana and Texas are right up there.

These things fascinate me ed.

What the poll consisted of in terms of numbers polled, what the questions were and what time of the day it was conducted. And whether the result was what the Allentown Morning Call felt to best represent its own policy on the matter. Whether the questions oversimplified the complexities of the issue to the point of sheer absurdity. Whether only old age pensioners responded.

The Govenor won the big poll didn't he? And he's taking the can back which the AMC isn't.

But I can understand the discouragement for those who only remember the polls that best represent their own position. As this one did fm's. Which is why he brought it to our attention.

Knowing him well enough I am sure that had the result been the other way round it would have been on Ignore and then you would have nothing to be discouraged about: which I see as positively beneficial.

That's just a flat-out, God's honest, bones of the arse lie. And economically fatuous. What does anybody want with reading one of those? What underestimation of the intelligence of A2Kers is implied by thinking such shite can get past our feet? And fm's whole position rests upon it. i.e. an upturned pyramid of lieling shoots.

fm is charging the Gov with corruption. Which is serious. With lining his pockets and those of his cronies at the expense of the poor, downtrodden, hard working and hard-pressed taxpayer (stop tittering Gladys). And that is exactly how the USA got to where it is. The supreme pinnacle of the evolutionary tree. When there were smoked filled rooms where it was necessary to call the wife to inform her that the meeting was still going on and she should go to bed.

The joke is, and all the evidence supports it, that if fm and his cronies get their hands on any tax it won't be for the benefit of any poor, downtrodden, hard working and hard-pressed taxpayers.

And fm is using that blatant and obvious lie as proof to support his charge against a man who stood before the people and won a vote of confidence. And to insult your intelligence by suggesting that the drilling companies are in the same position, vis-a-vis the State, as a henpecked husband is.

And then predicting that the Gov will be "pitched out" of office in 3 years or so. He might have added "on his neck".

I wonder if fm is picketing the Gov's offices like they were in Wisconsin. Is this a rocking-chair rebellion?

Obama is only beginning to realize that weve got an abundance of natural gas in this country and its enough to run us easily into the next century with the new gas surveys and new drill and recovery technologies available. Much more gas is being explored all over the planet , thanks to good old biological rot in ancient times and sandstone and shale repositories at depths. The overall way to calculate the amt of gas in cubic miles is to claculate the depth of the earths crust down to the mantle. Then look at the amt of shales and sandstones and then multiply by some porosity number (say 5% to be conservative). The amount , planet wide is enough to keep the planet running for at least two centuries. Its clean, abundant, and relatively easily extracted (oceans will present a problem so they can be developed later). There will be an announcement from China that the peri Himalayan gas basin will begin to be explored and some of the holes will be slant drilled into the sides of the massif.

Obama is looking to have cars converted to natural gas. Id suggest instead to derive the propane from the gas so it can be liquifiedand develop SAFE pressure transfer nozzles and tanks Underground tanks are best in this case. And we convert fleet cars and trucks to propane .

The basins are humongous

Presidents only suggest such things in a crisis. End of crisis, end of program. But, maybe this time, the crisis will not end before something gets established.

All of which goes to prove that--



was a crude falsehood except that it provides more proof than I offered earlier.

Are you in nonnyland again fm?

Penn's best bet is to save its gas for when everybody else's runs out. That should ring the bell on the till I should think.

Not quite because we need Canadian gas, but close. I get how we got stuck with corn ethanol which is very damaging to the world food supply and Americas economy and which is bad for the environment to boot....the farm lobby pushed the policy through our corrupt government using good old fashioned money.

But how did we miss that we have plenty of gas? How did we get stuck going after wind power which is expensive and ugly and never can provide very much energy when and where it is needed? THe deconstructing the mistakes of what has passed for our energy policy over the last decade is fascinating, and scary.

Thats our fault Edgar. We vote for a package but dont learn till later that what weve gotten is not what was promised. Like our governor. HE promised that hed deal with the gas "boom" in a fashion that would be best fopr the citizens of Pa. SO he was elected by a margin that was closer than predicted , seeing that the Dem nominee was an afterthought who bore no support from the outgoing governor. SO when our new governor turns coat and sides with the gas industry he shows his true colors. Hes just another opportunist who isnt counting on a full 8 years or a "legacy".
Previous gov Rendell left the ed system much more improved since the 60's . Wed made some real advances in results with kids. SO Corbett (the new guy) immediately is dismantling the ed system, is not seeking any extraction taxes, and is offering more business net income tax breaks . All the while he plotting to dismantle many of the state health programs including the "PAce" program of meds available to veterans .

I predict he will be tossed out like James Buchanan

the exploration for natural gas had defined hundreds of formations that carry and sore gas in their grain spaces.awe never had the technology to extract and move it until about 15 years ago when newer techniques for right angle and slant drilling were developed. We knew how to slant drill but we didnt, until that time, have the ability to drive a bit to land right on target. Computer tricks such as deep well logging and the manufacture of 3D "drill contour maps of a gas field are fed into a complex program that actually controls the drill biyts location by shiftingweights in the bit head. The 3D "map" of the drill site is like a GPS for the drill bit. The drill site is a computer 3D survey of the prospect that is accurate out to about 10 miles radius from the proposed drill hole. SO the drill bit "Drives itself" to a key point ,(such as the contact between two key formations) and the holes are completed. THEN, the really big trick, called hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" takes over. Here the drillers make a mass of water and chemicals into a slurry that acts like water when allowed to flow into the drill hole and then then acts like a mass of "pudding" followed by really big time forces of pressure and head (elevation mass ) which just fcrack the rocks like a hammer on glass. This creates gazillions opf interconnected fractures that allow the interstitial gas to flow into the borehole and get collected up top.

This is all great but it requires care and safe field work to peevent major environmental disasters such as big surface fires or major water pollution from the frack fluids.

It can be done safely, but there seems to be some disconnect as everybody is merely acting in blind self interests. Thats been my thesis all along, "NO BUSINESS WILL DO THE RIGHT THING BY US WITHOUT CAREFUL OVERSIGHT". SO far no one has been able to deny that nor show me where Im incorrect.
In Pa, the Gilded age was made manifest in the deforetstaion of our timberlands, the piling up of "legacy sediments" in our streams and the defilement of our rivers by coal mining (the damages and acid legacy is still with us in 1/3 of the states waterways).PA has the most miles of streams of any other state in the lower 48. Only Alaska has more streams and rivers than PA. (Its all because of topography and climate. Yes we get 60 some % of our gasoline via Canada from their tars . If we collect and eplore all the NATURAL GAS deposits, and didnt sell it overseas, we could be totally energy independent based on a nat gas economy. Of course thats not great economic sense to our system of capitalism. But, if all the nations would together develop the resource, we could be a planet gifted of plenty of cheap energy. Does a capitalist economy want their assets to be cheap? maybe not. but available, yes.

I'll try to read that shite tomorrow but in the meantime a similar problem has arisen in Ecuador. The choice, it seems, is between a significant section of the population having a better and better time of it and breaking the hearts of ecologists and those idiots who believe all men are created equal like Charles Darwin explained.

There's over a billion barrels of oil sitting underneath the habitat of the threatened (fill in name of choice but make sure it's a photogenic creature ideal for pathos ridden voiceovers) and at $120 odd a can it's enough for a decent party. And for not drilling they want compensation. 50--50.

What will MsOlga think?

Heres a letter in a West Chester Pa newspaper by a local politician. He has the right idea about our gov Tom "GAspockets" Corbett.

CBS News last night said that there are 6,500 "spills" a year in the US. Some horrible examples were shown. Since Deepwater Horizon was plugged the spillage from it has been overpassed by the totality of other "lesser" Gulf spills, they said.

You must be oversimplifying fm.

How much drilling would be going on if the US was all Amish? Does it not make sense to reduce demand instead of whipping it up so that you can all feel significant in proportion to how much energy you consume?

It's a psychological problem. Limitless. Keeping up with Mrs Jones on higher and higher levels with no end in sight until one is forced upon you.

Newsnight tonight reporting on BP's DH spill is suggesting that the hysterical response, one American expert calling it "lies", did more economic damage to Gulf coast business than the spill itself.

That the spill was "the worst ecological disaster in US history" was shown to be ridiculous. The exploding population is actually the WEDIUSH.

It seems that every American in the region whose year has not gone as he or she would have wished is blaming it on the spill and applying for compensation. There are 100,000 claims with no supporting documentation.

Yeah, it did turn out hard to claim compensation for undeclared and untaxed income, didn't it?

yes but BP has gone for its depletion allowances Ive heard. IS that pahuutzery?

IT seems that there is a bit of Ponzitude in all this MArcellus drilling. Lease holders and drillers seem to be overestimating their reserves and are buying "Short" as gas prices plummet.

It is if "pahuutzery" is a science whereby the pot from which pensions are drawn is kept topped up.

HA, an article in the Williamsport Paper confirms that there is a bunch of short selling going on. I hope that the state AG is opening an investigation into fraud practices (and probably mail fraud since the AG has included Email in prosecuting mail fraud) Pa is a bit ahead on that one, even though the new governor has been bought and paid for by the gas companies.

That sounds like the guys that murdered their parents pleading for mercy since they were orphans.

Well, I heard that story so often, I kind of hope it has some truth.

What's pahuutzery, by the way?

EDIT: There was quite a commentary piece in yesterday's WSJ on the shale gas arguments. They're for it of course, but this time I think their bias might have gotten ahead of some of the facts.