In perhaps the most audacious and ground-breaking use of proposed legislation and punditry to solve REAL problems, the legisidiocracy and the pundidiocracy declared that all available federal lands contain the same amount of oil and gas! http://www.kentucky.com/589/story/443005.html.
Barak Obama is quoted as saying in Las Vegas last week "I want you to think about this. The oil companies have already been given 68 million acres of Federal land, both onshore and offshore, to drill. They're allowed to drill it, and yet they haven't touched it- 68 million acres that have the potential to nearly double America's oil production." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121478199392114387.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
This viewpoint has been supported and parroted by Pelosi, Boxer, Kerry, Rahall, and others. Rahall, on the radio and TV over the weekend, compared these acres to currently restricted offshore and onshore acreage.
In one turn of the phrase, the politicos and punditos have created huge new reserves of oil and gas! Not since the Indiana legislature tried to legislate the value of PI to be equal to 3.2 has the power of political effort been so meaningful. This is huge news for me. See, I'm gonna be rich!
First, I need to find out where I can get the free mineral leases that Barak says the government is 'giving' away. I hope some is the in the Bakken Shale. For some reason, I have been a chump all these years and had to go to an auction and bid actual "dollars" to get federal or state acreage and pay "royalties" on what I found, while all this time they were GIVING it away! Probably to "Big Oil". I have an email into Obama asking exactly who I talk to to get the free leases. I hope it isn't Richard Daley! I will pass this valuable info on to you after I have had my pick of 'em.
Second, I guess I don't really care if it is Bakken acreage since all acreage, or at least Federal acreage now contains the same amount of hydrocarbons, presumbaly at the same economics as ANWR or, better yet, offshore California, on an acre per acre basis. Sweet. If this mass-balance applies to all acreage, I am now a billionaire several times over due to some acreage I have in Runnels county... In fact, I am leasing heavily in El Paso County at 5 bucks an acre because the mineral owners haven't yet heard about the "new physics"...heh heh.
Of course, I need to fire my geologists and geophysicists, because I don't need 'em if every acre is loaded to the brim. I'll need to fire my engineers. Too damn Republican. "Sorry, it was a dry hole"! or "Nothing but salt water"! Clearly, I need to hire some Obama-trained engineers that can extract all this national wealth on my behalf...
Mr. Rahall, in his report, "extrapolates that if you take historical production from offshore and onshore federal leases to the undrilled leases, we could double American Oil Production". Brian Kennedy, of the Institute for Energy Research was even more enthusiastic.
"Using the same extrapolation, the 9.4 billion acres of the currently non-producing moon should yield 654 million barrels of oil per day!".
The House then passed the "Use It Or Lose It" bill 223-195. This is HUGE news and a welcome expansion of Climate Change Government Science. I am proud to be an American Scientist today. I just needed to learn how to extrapolate! Now I just need the Think Tank to come up with a way to make sewage into drill pipe, and I think we are set.
So it is confirmed, it is an Idiocracy we have. The movie was a satire, but it turns out to also be prescient.
Posted by: attila | July 07, 2008 at 02:53 PM
Congressman Rahall perpetuated a fraud that was created by his House Committee on Natural Resources claiming that 4.8 million barrels of oil a day could be produced from the 68 million acres of nonproducing leases. His claim is completely bogus because the method to derive the amount is a total fraud.
The fraud was created by the House Committee on Natural Resources, with their June 2008 special report, which was released 18 June 2008. The report provides neither data.or method. I had been trying for 10 weeks to obtain the method. On the rare occasion when someone at CNR would answer the telephone, I was shuffled off to someone else resulting in voice mail and never a return call. Previous attempts through Rahall\'s office were always back to the CNR switchboard. This time I told Rahall\'s district staffer I had been trying for 10 weeks and that I watched Rahall on CSPAN talk about this great openness that now exists.
The confirmation as to the CNR method was from Katherine Romans, Policy Section, House Committee on Natural Resources. The confirmation started with a 25 September 2008 telephone call to her that was made via Rahall\'s district office. I finally came up with the method on my own and Ms Romans confirmed that I was correct in her 26 Sepember 2008 email to me, which is below
The Method
- created a percentage of non-producing acreage to producing acreage for the two lease types, onshore and offshore
- multiplied each percentage by the amount of daily production from each of the two lease types that produce oil
- added the two numbers together
The method is fraud for no one in oil and gas or the government agencies that provide production estimates to the government (US Geological Survey, Energy Information Administration, Minerals Management Service) would ever use such a method. Production estimates are based on estimated reserves, which Mr Feldgus did not use. Production estimates are always given with a low, mean and high amounts, which reflects the uncertainty yet Mr Feldgus issued a single number, which denotes certainty. Production estimates are uncertain because the amount of oil is uncertain and is reflected in reserves being comprised also of three amounts of low, mean and high. The difference between high and low are in the billions of barrels. As a professional staffer who deals with energy matter, Mr Feldgus knows how production estimates are made and why so for him use the method that he did is fraud and he knows it. There is not one shred of validity in the method Mr Feldgus used.
The amount and method was the creation of Steve Fledgus, staffer on the CNR subcommittee on Energy and Natural Resources. On the afternoon of 2 September 2008, Debroah (subcommittee Energy and Minerals) confirmed to me, by telephone, that the data came from Materials Management Service but did not say what the data was. I called back the same afternoon to the subcommittee and spoke to one of the other two subcommittee female staffers who said Steve Feldgus did the work. I left a voice mail twice with Mr Feldgus for the method but did not return my telephone call.
America can not continue using oil as we have and we can not produce enough oil to get us to energy independance. New sources of energy are needed as well as increased efficiencies. But oil and gas will still be the dominate sources even in 2030, according to the Energy Information Administration and even the Wilderness Society.
Though I live in Houston, I do not work in oil and gas and I am not an operative for any group. I am one citizen who delved deeply into the condition of our nation\'s oil and gas.
Partisan politics is the way the system works because there are different views on issues but that does not give anyone in Congress the right to lie and perpetrate a fraud to further any cause.
If you want verification, contact HCNR (202-225-6065) and ask for the method and all of the needed data? Also ask them to explain the validity of their method when no other organization would use it
Posted by: Charles Moore | November 04, 2008 at 02:19 AM