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Page added on February 28, 2018
The Shale Wonderland
The world was taken aback when oil prices fell dramatically early this year. We had grown used to oil at over US$100/barrel. To drop to about half was unprecedented. Many in the oil production business are desperately revising their budgets; the rest of us are starting to enjoy an improved cash flow. Of course, what happened was that the United States had started to produce oil and gas at an unforeseen rate.
Prof Philip Lloyd’s response originally appeared in Issue 1/2015 of our print magazine. The digital version of the full magazine can be read online or downloaded free of charge.
Today it is producing nearly 10 million barrels of oil a day and Saudi Arabia is increasing its output in an attempt to put the US producers out of business and so drive a price increase. Today the US is producing nearly 70 billion cubic feet of natural gas, 40% more than it was a decade ago. Believers in peak oil/peak gas have turned far quieter.
The change is the result of a huge technological shift. It has been found that the coal-black shales which underlie much of North America can be persuaded to yield oil and gas in economic quantities. All that it takes is a long hole more or less horizontally through the shale, and a bit of pressure to hydraulically lift the strata above the hole. Imagine a flat book with a balloon between two pages. Blow up the balloon, and the pages will be forced apart. In the shale, the fractures stretching out from the hole provide the oil or gas with a short path to freedom, and it can flow at a far higher rate than it can from the unbroken rock.
The shale is deep – typically about 2km deep – so it takes a high pressure to lift the rock. There is a fear that the high pressure will cause the hole to leak – but if it leaks, then you can’t create a high pressure! So the people trying to fracture the rock go to great lengths to make certain that the hole doesn’t leak – the fears of leakage are largely unfounded. We know this because over one million holes have been stimulated hydraulically during the past 20 years, and there has been precisely one documented leak – when there was an uncharted hole close to the one which the drillers were trying to pressurise. The damage the spill caused was minimal, for the simple reason that the drillers stopped pumping the moment they realised they were wasting their time.
The drillers have found that it helps to add a bit of sand to the water used to fracture the rock. The sand particles get carried into the fractures, and hold them open when the pressure is released. In order to make sure the sand gets carried along, the water usually contains a thickening agent rather like a gel, and a couple of other chemicals to make certain there is no corrosion of the pipes and similar effects. The total additives are less than 1%, but that is sufficient to make the water undrinkable. So the water coming out of the hole when the pressure is released has to be treated to remove the additives. It can be restored to full drinkability, but often it is only taken as far as being suitable for agriculture, for which there is usually a demand close at hand.
There is a fear that the additives could be toxic – and indeed, they often are, but it depends on what you mean when you say ‘toxic’. For instance, the acidity of the water is often adjusted with a dash of hydrochloric acid. Neat hydrochloric acid is indeed nasty stuff; but our stomachs are full of dilute hydrochloric, so once diluted it is essentially harmless. There is an idea that the drillers add benzene, which is indeed toxic. However, there is no evidence that drillers have actually used benzene as an additive, and it is a mystery why they would ever want to. It does not dissolve in water, and is flammable, so it could not do anything to improve the process. The fear of toxic chemicals has largely gone away since the drillers agreed to tell the world precisely what they add.
There is also a fear of gas getting into the water. Famously, the activist documentary Gaslands showed water coming out of a tap burning. However, that particular phenomenon was first observed in the 1930s, and a government enquiry in the 1950s had shown that the water was coming from a peat layer quite close to surface. It had nothing whatever to do with hydraulic fracturing of shale. And the other side of the story is that people have been drinking that water for around 80 years, proving that a dash of methane in your drink is not the end of the world!
115 Comments on "The Shale Wonderland"
Cloggie on Thu, 1st Mar 2018 12:09 pm
Greggie, you would be tempted to embrace genocide becuase you believe the means justifys the ends.
Pure projection of our local ZOG-bot, who will go at every length required to cover up for the lies and crimes of the US empire. It is you who will justify every war of conquest of your club and you avoid any serious discussion about history, because you know you have nothing to stand on. Instead you count on the uninformed state of most and continue to act as a sniper, but avoid man-to-man combat, because you know you would loose such a fight.
Like I always say about you greggie your are a closet racist and nationalist.
Davy is the typical cuck, who talks left and acts right. He lives in a pristine white little town, has only white relationships and has a refuge organized in ultra-white northern Italy. And on top of that he voted for Trump, out of despair with the changing demographics of the US, but he won’t admit it, because he is too fond on virtue signalling and launching racism smears, because in the end of the day he remains loyal to the intentions of the US empire, which is world conquest. He loves to think he belongs to the “1%”, because, you see, Davy matters (he doesn’t, people who are pushing wheel-barrows with goat shit are definitely NOT 1%).
I summarize my position: I oppose racism (persecution, discrimination, humiliation), there are no good or bad races/ethnicities, although I am inclined to make an exception for a single group and int megalomaniac intentions, but I’m not going to mention any names here because nobody likes to be accused of anti-cementheadism.
HOWEVER… this is not the end of the story. Different ethnic/religious groups have a group identity, based on many centuries of common history, which invariably results in group competition, if several groups are placed within the confinement of a single country/territory. That identity cannot be abolished easily and usually group competition increases over time, especially if two competing groups have roughly the same strength. #Timber. Will for power is an essential ingredient, not just of humans, but generally of organic life.
America is indeed “exceptionalist”, because of its size and because it is owned by the most ruthless and intelligent people on the planet with the highest will for power. On top of that it is a special country, because its inhabitants are all descendants from immigrants, many of them quite recent. That means that North-Americans have the weakest sense of ethnic identity of all people in the world, not for some moral failure, but simply because they didn’t have the time to let an identity grow over the centuries. Americans are those people who can relatively easy embrace the idea of globalism, meaning that everybody can become an “American”, provided he has two legs (one will do as well).
It is only now that (white) Americans begin to panic…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGSAhNZnisk
…at the prospect of becoming a minority “in their own lands”. Which simply means they begin to discover their Europeans roots and even become vocal about it. This panic is not going away but will increase over time, hand-in-hand with shifting demographics. Yugoslavia existed because Serbia brought it into being and it ceased to exist when the Serbs could no longer dominate and other, Muslims and Croats foremost, decided to escape from Serbs dominance. Iraq and Sunni minority rule, same story. Ukraine was alwasy dominated by the Russia and its local Russian proxies. When the western Ukraine took over power in Kiev (thanks to western covert subversion) the Russians of Donbass decided to secede.
America will go down exactly the same path. The only question is when. The presence of hundreds of millions of weapons only lowers the threshold.
Davy on Thu, 1st Mar 2018 12:19 pm
Greggie, you condone murder and you are a closet racist. You just hide it. Your comments speak for themselves. The company you keep speaks of it. Your attitude and actions are a dead giveaway.
Davy on Thu, 1st Mar 2018 12:22 pm
Mm, try this:
http://www.deagel.com/country/
fmr-paultard on Thu, 1st Mar 2018 12:29 pm
as a former paultard, i tried giving power to the masses and suffered greatly. islam is about empowering the masses. this is direct oposition to worshiping supertards.
my experience ended up terrible for me. almost ate lead many times.
so what if you’re part of a caliphate? it would be brutal and you can’t change your mind because it’s called apotasy and the punishment is death. i know many have a soft spot for mohammad the rapist. you’re conveniently placing your faith on a mere doctrine with cliques such as index finger pointing upward signifying one devil Allah and nothing else.
I’m a constantinean catholic. I don’t think superemetard exist but i’m not chopping head to enforce the message either way.
I just get misty about simple stuff:
Then said he unto them, But now, he that has a purse, let him take it, and likewise his bag: and he that has no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.
MASTERMIND on Thu, 1st Mar 2018 1:18 pm
Davy
I know I have seen that before. But I dont know the background of deagle? I cant find anything online about them. They dont appear to be a doomer site but they have that forecast of 90 percent of the US depopulated by 2025 or somthing like that?
Antius on Thu, 1st Mar 2018 1:37 pm
I’m not sure I do oppose racism. Racism is kind of like society’s immune system – a violent inflammatory response that combats and rejects an irritating foreign body. It can be ugly to watch, but is good and necessary.
Nations that aren’t racist end up being colonised and their people pushed to extinction. As I alluded to earlier, one cannot assess the ethics of an action until one understands its full long-term implications. Racism is necessary and right. We do not suppress our immune system to allow bacteria to grow at the expense of our own cells. That would be perverse. So is anti-racism.
Racism is normal, natural and right. Marxism is evil. The Jew is like the AIDS virus, suppressing the national immune system for it’s own benefit and allowing the invasion of pathogens that consume the host society that they both live off and despise.
GregT on Thu, 1st Mar 2018 1:47 pm
Deagel Web Solutions is a U.S.A. company, located in 1000 South Main Street, Laurinburg, North Carolina. It’s registered to one Dr. Edwin A. Deagel Jr, PhD, Director of International Relations, Rockefeller Foundation. Also said to have been the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense (William Perry) and the Deputy Secretary of Defence in 1994.
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/6671943
MASTERMIND on Thu, 1st Mar 2018 1:54 pm
Greg
Rockefellar that means oil and energy!
GregT on Thu, 1st Mar 2018 2:17 pm
“Rockefellar that means oil and energy!”
There was a university study that was presented to congress back in the 80s, if memory serves me correct. (could have been the 90s)
Lets just say that the Rockefeller dynasty extends far beyond just oil and energy. Their holdings include nearly everything in the US.
Anonymouse1 on Thu, 1st Mar 2018 3:16 pm
THe exceptionalist is having full on conversations with himself these days. Is that what’s keeping you from getting that much needed visit to your local mental health specialists? I suggest you spend less time talking to your other personality disorder, and focus more on getting the help you need.
Davy on Thu, 1st Mar 2018 3:47 pm
Weasel, say something in regards to the issues. We know you can be a prick. Are you afraid to debate me? I know I handed you your ass when you stupidly tried to frame Canadian tar sands as American tar sands. You tried to paint dumbass Canada as the victim of the evil American oil companies. You were crying crocodile tears weren’t you stupid.
GregT on Thu, 1st Mar 2018 3:59 pm
“Greggie, you condone murder and you are a closet racist. You just hide it. Your comments speak for themselves. The company you keep speaks of it. Your attitude and actions are a dead giveaway..”
More of the usual delusions.
You are one seriously messed up individual buddy.
Anonymouse1 on Thu, 1st Mar 2018 7:58 pm
Exceptionalist, is does not matter how many times you attempt to project imagined character traits and attributes onto others. Traits, that not surprisingly, better describe your own paranoid train-wreck of a personality(disorder). Nor does it matter in the least how many times you declare ‘victory’ over imgained events. Or, as you prefer to call them ‘spankings’ (Eww). Reality does not debate, or negotiate, with lunatics, or dumbasses either.
Since you won’t seek the help you need, it will have to suffice that you remain alone and isolated in your backwoods swamp. Once mak gets back, you can resume wailing about China and the Philippines non-stop once again. It’s the closest thing to therapy you are likely to ever recieve.
And yes dumbass, the uS is an extortion and theft racket(still). Nothing new to report there. Grand-theft Empire on a global scale. Your only role in all that, is to act as an (insane) one amerikan, one sock cheerleading squad for it all. A role you have embraced at a level far deeper than thought.
Davy on Thu, 1st Mar 2018 8:55 pm
Weasel, like I said, we know you know how to stalk and prick. It must be in the milk up there in Canada. Greggie is the same way. Are you capable of an intelligent comment is the question. On a rare occasion you utter something that is coherent. The same is true for your buddy greggie. Most of the time you two are
pests and not worthy to be here where intelligent people meet.
Cloggie on Thu, 1st Mar 2018 9:15 pm
“Weasel, say something in regards to the issues. We know you can be a prick. Are you afraid to debate me?”
Hahahaha! That’s rich! Davy himself never debates anything of substance and flees when challenged on topics he can’t win, like history or 9/11 or who owns the US.