ModeShift - Part 40

Energy Boom: Is It For Real? Looks Like Answer is Yes

by Keith SchneiderFebruary 8, 2012March 2, 20120

Prompted by President Obama’s unexpectedly cheery assessment of America’s energy outlook in the State of the Union, the Washington Post asked whether the surge in fossil fuel production was real. Yes, the paper concluded, but not for very long. The Post, it appears to me, is too pessimistic. U.S. oil production peaked in 1970s at about 9.6 million barrels per day. It dropped to 4.96 million barrels a day in 2008, the lowest production since …

Obama Worries About Big Turbulence in America’s Clean Energy Sector

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 29, 2012April 19, 20120

Converging trendsÂ are roiling the clean energy manufacturing and production sectors here in Michigan andÂ nationally. President Obama knows it and is worried. The collapse of the Solyndra solar plant in California isÂ a prickly presidential campaign issue. Jobs and the country’s capacity to reduce its climate changing emissions, (as shown in the emissions counter above in NYC), also are big outcomes. On Tuesday evening, the president told the story of an unemployed west Michigan …

Boom in Fuel Production Keeps Obama’s “All Of The Above” Energy Strategy Leaning One Way

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 25, 2012January 29, 20120

Four years ago, when he campaigned for the office he now holds, Barack Obama described the urgent need to pursue clean energy development because of a grave and persistent problem. Demand and prices for oil were rising, along with national and economic security risks tied to ever higher imports. Supplies of domestically-produced fuel, meanwhile, were falling. Last night, as the president defined the basic outlines of an “all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source …

More Rigs, More Wells Describe American Oil and Gas Boom

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 12, 2012March 2, 20120

Every month the Energy Information Administration, a unit of the Energy Department, updates its Total Energy report, one of the most useful compendiums of data describing the interest and capacity of the American energy sector. The latest edition, published last month, illustrates a national oil and gas sector on a roll. Among the rich field of data charts contained in Total Energy, two are arguably the most revealing. Table 5.1 (page 77) reports that the …

Political Irony for Obama in North Dakota Oil Boom: Energy Sector Leads Jobs Recovery and Re-Election Chances

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 7, 2012March 2, 20120

Early this morning Scott Terrell boarded Amtrak’s Empire Builder in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho for the overnight ride east to Williston, N.D. A month ago I met Scott while riding the same train to the heart of the northern Great Plains oil and gas boom. In the weeks since, I’ve learned more about the influence of energy development in the Dakotas and other states, and how it affects men like Terrell. Let’s just put it this …

How Long Will North Dakota Bakken Boom Last? Decades Due To China

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 5, 2012February 2, 20121

Joel Bleth, a lawyer and engineer who co-founded Solar Bee, a very successful Dickinson, N.D.-based manufacturer of solar-powered equipment to circulate wastewater at treatment plants, sent a message here today asking how long the oil and gas boom in his state would persist. Dickinson, a prairie city of 18,000, has grown more than 10 percent since the turn of the century and for several years has experienced swelling markets for retail and office buildings, hotels …

North Dakota Oil Boom Like Air Ambulance Flying In Storm

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 4, 2012February 2, 20120

The day after Christmas, Scott Terrell, a painter and carpenter from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho turned 58. Never has he felt the weight and wear of his years so acutely. Last August Terrell joined the army of oilfield mercenaries that are rapidly converting great stretches of North Dakota, Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming into the most productive fossil fuel development zone in U.S. history. He quickly landed a job driving a Volvo haul truck on a …

North Dakota’s Oil Boom Leads U.S. Out of Recession

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 1, 2012February 1, 20131

Sunday evening, December 2011, Amtrakâ€™s eastbound Empire Builder pulls into Williston, North Dakota, a fast-growing northern Great Plains city riding the lashing tail of an oil-drilling dragon. A crowd gathers on the station platform. Men coming. Men going. Big pickups rumble in the parking lot. Four years into a drilling frenzy that has pushed North Dakota to the top of the nationâ€™s oil-producing states, the sound of Williston is diesel engines. The scent is diesel …

Great Plains Bakken Riches Describe New Wealth, New Risk

by Keith SchneiderDecember 27, 2011March 21, 20120

GLENDIVE, MT — Myrna Quale and Laura Glueckert own and manageÂ The Enchanted Room here in this Dawson County town of 4,700 residents close by the border with North Dakota. In the last nine months, they said in an interview, business in their W. Towne Street fabric and floral gifts store has picked up 15 to 20Â percent, “and we had a good business to start with,” said Quale. “I view it as a positive …

Bakken and Other Big Oil and Gas Plays Produced 200,000 New Jobs Since 2005

by Keith SchneiderDecember 23, 2011March 21, 20121

WILLISTON, N.D. — A pad of ice four inches thick greeted Ron Ivory on a clear and cold December morning at the busy water depot south of town. Ivory is 47 years old, a stocky and bearded truck driver from Vernal, Utah, with 23 years in the business. He’s been in North Dakota two weeks, working 14 hour days and earning $25 an hour hauling fresh water, 130 barrels a load, to oil production sites. …