Settled Science on the Proper Spelling of ‘Fracking’ #fracking #rsrh

Posted on May 28, 2014 by Steve Maley

1. Phonetically, ‘fracing’ makes no sense.

2. We already have ‘picnicking’.

3. So it’s ‘fracking’. Q.E.D.

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The Inevitable Shakeout in the Shale Patch

Posted on May 28, 2014 by Steve Maley

Shakeout Threatens Shale Patch as Frackers Go for Broke

The U.S. shale patch is facing a shakeout as drillers struggle to keep pace with the relentless spending needed to get oil and gas out of the ground.

Shale debt has almost doubled over the last four years while revenue has gained just 5.6 percent, according to a Bloomberg News analysis of 61 shale drillers. A dozen of those wildcatters are spending at least 10 percent of their sales on interest compared with Exxon Mobil Corp.’s 0.1 percent.

“The list of companies that are financially stressed is considerable,” said Benjamin Dell, managing partner of Kimmeridge Energy, a New York-based alternative asset manager focused on energy. “Not everyone is going to survive. We’ve seen it before.”

Continue reading →

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When Your ‘Goal’ is not really Your Goal

Posted on May 11, 2014 by Steve Maley

imageIt’s a massive “tell”: The Kyoto goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions was never the global warming crowd’s true goal. Continue reading →

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Sometimes the Goal is Not Really the Goal

Posted on May 9, 2014 by Steve Maley

Correspondent Clark Griswold reports:

I spent the last three months planning my family’s summer road trip to Wally World. My Trip-Tik anticipated stops at the Grand Canyon, the House of Mud and the World’s Second Largest Ball of Twine, but the ultimate goal of our westward journey is the fabulous amusement park, Wally World. No detail was too small for my Trip-Tik.

On Tuesday, an oversized FedEx envelope bore a certificate to be redeemed for an all-expenses-paid Wally World vacation for my entire family, with First Class round-trip plane tickets, luxury accommodations at Hotel Wally plus $5,000 spending money — extras that I had never dreamed were possible. The Family Truckster will stay in the garage. No Ball of Twine. No House of Mud. No Aunt Edna.

Darn the luck. All that planning down the drain.

Some say that getting there is half the fun. In my case, getting there is all the fun. Because if I can’t control the trip, what’s the use of going?

Continue reading →

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Matt Yglesias’ Utterly Banal and Misleading Economic Insight

Posted on May 3, 2014 by Steve Maley

Matt Yglesias, boy genius and resident economics expert at Ezra Klein’s Vox.com, recently posted the following banality under the title “The Private Sector is Up, the Public Sector is Down”.

yglesias banality

Matt’s analysis:

The recession hit the private sector faster and harder, but the private sector’s already made back all its losses. The government, by contrast, has been really slumping.

ProTip: Whenever Matt makes a pronouncement like that, it pays to dig a mite deeper. Continue reading →

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Velvet Underground music break

Posted on May 3, 2014 by Steve Maley

A midday music feature from a few weeks back at nola.com. I endorse the idea, but would not have featured any song sung by Nico. Chacon a son goût, as I always say.
http://www.nola.com/music/index.ssf/2014/03/the_velvet_underground_is_your.html#incart_river_default

Weird postscript stands out:

Coincidentally, former child star Macaulay Culkin brings his tribute band the Pizza Underground, whose charming premise is to rewrite Velvet Underground songs with lyrics about pizza, to New Orleans on March 17. The first, 10 p.m. set at the Hi Ho Lounge sold out quickly, so a second early show was added, at 7 p.m.

So, Culkin’s new "I’m Just Waiting For The Man" is about scoring a 12" pepperoni with black olives instead of heroin.

And "Take a Walk on the Wild Side" is no longer about transvestite hookers, but contains the lyric "don’t hold the anchovies." And the Papa John’s girls say …

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#FIFY, Vox.

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Steve Maley

For a host of reasons, Matt Yglesias’s simplistic graph (“The private sector is up, public sector is down”) is unenlightening and practically misleading. A little more insight can be had to those willing to drill down a little bit. See below.

The graph has been corrected from the version previously linked on the Twitter.

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Tell me again why we don’t need the Keystone XL Pipeline? #KXL #rsrh

Posted on May 1, 2014 by Steve Maley

Tell me again why we don't need the Keystone XL Pipeline? #KXL #rsrh

Keystone protesters are very sure they don’t want a pipeline. Is this what they want to replace it with? Embrace it, baby.

“The derailment occurred Wednesday in downtown Lynchburg [VA] causing a large and intense fire, but no injuries. City officials estimate that about 50,000 gallons of oil were missing from the tankers but were unsure how much had burned up and how much had spilled into the water.” (Link: http://www.nola.com/traffic/index.ssf/2014/05/tankers_carrying_oil_derail_ca.html#incart_river_default)

No technology is 100% free of risk, but the amount of hysteria generated about this TransCanada pipeline project is just ludicrous. Pipelines, not barges and railroad tank cars, are the best way to move around large volumes of oil.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Great Achievements in Central Planning: Cellulosic Biofuel

Posted on April 30, 2014 by Steve Maley

Over the years, we’ve ridiculed Congress’s cellulosic biofuel mandates and associated penalties (for example, here and here) which were enacted as part of the Renewable Fuel Standard in 2007. Cellulosic biofuel is mostly ethanol sourced not from corn but from switchgrass, wood pellets and other non-food sources. Refiners who missed mandated targets of cellulosic biofuel were required to purchase credits to cover their shortfall. Effectively, it was a fine.

Problem was, cellulosic technology was slow to make it out of the lab and into commercial plants. As the Energy Information Administration has noted, biofuel production costs are higher than fossil fuels and market resistance is the same as ethanol from other sources. Back in 2010, when the EPA started levying its penalties, cellulosic ethanol was unavailable because no plants were producing it. Continue reading →

Posted in Economy, Energy, Environment, Government | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Happy #EarthDay2014, Part 4: The best idea of all.

Posted on April 22, 2014 by Steve Maley

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