THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 110, April 24, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
U.S. AGENCY CAREFULLY OPTIMISTIC ON BAKKEN DEPOSIT
By Dennis T. Avery
NORTH AMERICA'S PLENTIFUL ENERGY SOURCES: THE OIL DEPOSITS UNDER ANWR & THE ATLANTIC & PACIFIC
CONTINENTAL SHELVES, THE BAKKEN FORMATION UNDER NORTH DAKOTA & SASKATCHEWAN, THE MARCELLUS
OIL SHALE UNDER THE APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS, ALBERTA'S TAR SANDS, TWO CENTURIES WORTH OF COAL, &
NUCLEAR FISSIONABLE MATERIALS -- THE SOURCE OF NORTH AMERICA'S BIGGEST ENERGY PROBLEM: OUR
ACCEPTANCE OF THE GLOBAL WARMING THESIS OF POLITICAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS &, ON THE BASIS OF THAT THESIS,
OUR DECISION NOT TO USE OUR OWN NATURAL RESOURCES TO PRODUCE ADEQUATE SUPPLIES OF THE ENERGY WE NEED --
THE LACK OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT THE ENVIRONMENTALISTS' CLAIM OF HUMAN-INDUCED GLOBAL
WARMING
FULL STORY:
One of the most extensive oil deposits in the world — the huge Bakken Formation — underlies North Dakota and
Saskatchewan. The Bakken holds up to 500 billion barrels of oil, double the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia. But it lies
in thin, shallow shale formations that are hard to drill and don’t flow readily. Is the Bakken America’s energy
independence; a dire threat of global overheating; or just expensive holes in the ground?
In 1995, the U.S. Geological Survey said it expected to recover only 151 million of the Bakken’s billions of barrels, using
then-available technology. This month, however, USGS announced the Bakken could now yield 28 times that much oil,
up to 4.3 billion barrels, thanks to higher oil prices and two new technologies: computer-guided horizontal drilling, and
high-pressure rock fracturing. Will another dozen years of high-tech add another 4 billion barrels of recoverable Bakken
oil? Will biotech bacteria help us harvest the oil as natural gas?
Meanwhile:
Three oil companies have found 15 billion barrels of oil 28,000 feet under the Gulf of Mexico — boosting U.S. proven
reserves 50 percent.
The U.S.A. could now start harvesting a “super giant” gas field — 500 trillion cubic feet — from the Marcellus Shale
under the Appalachian Mountains. Again, it would require the horizontal drilling and rock fracturing.
Brazil has discovered the third largest oil field in history, the Carioca, 170 miles offshore under 6,000 feet of water. The
Carioca ranks behind only the Saudi and Kuwait fields discovered 60 years ago.
The USGS agrees the world has harvested only about one-third of the oil we’ve discovered, not to mention six trillion
barrels of tar sands and huge amounts of oil shale already found but not exploited.
Even in North America, we are not running out of fuels. Between the Bakken, the Marcellus Shale, Alberta’s tar sands,
and two centuries worth of coal, North America is rich in fossil fuels. What we now face is our own decision not to use
them.
We have accepted the Greenpeace claim that human use of fossil fuels is artificially overheating the earth — without
evidence to support the claim. We’ve accepted the Greenpeace decision not to use nuclear power, which has no
emissions at all, and a fine safety record outside the old Soviet Union.
Human history shows a Medieval Warming (950-1300AD) and a Roman Warming (200 B.C-600 AD) that were warmer
than today. Ice cores, seabed sediments, and fossil pollen say they were part of a moderate, natural 1,500-year
warming/cooling cycle (1-3 degrees Celsius up and down at the latitude of Washington) that goes back a million years.
The carbon-14 in trees tells us it’s linked to the sun. Global warming alarmists say the cycle existed, but has been
overtaken by the huge increase in human-emitted greenhouse gases since 1940. The alarmists tell us our recent
warming couldn’t be due to the sun, but offer no evidence to counter the carbon-14 in the trees.
The earth’s net warming since 1940 is a tiny 0.2 degrees Celsius, with no warming trend at all since 1998. Last year,
temperatures dropped — in defiance of the climate computer models. NASA admits the “oceans stopped warming” 4-5
years ago, based on best-ever data from 3,000 new high-tech ocean buoys. The sunspots have been predicting all of
this since 2000.
Meanwhile, we’re using scarce cropland, starving the world’s poor, and endangering wildlife species in order to get
biofuels, which deliver worse mileage, higher costs, and more greenhouse emissions than gasoline.
Shouldn’t the U.S.A. have some evidence that humanity is to blame — beyond computer models — before we
renounce our still-abundant fossil and nuclear power?
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
The Earth's Natural History, Global Climate Changes,
& the Future of Human Life & Civilization on the Planet:
Science, Ideology, & Public Policy
Agriculture, the Economy, & Human Welfare:
Policy Issues Relating to Food Production
Dennis T. Avery is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., and is the Director of the Institute's Center for
Global Food Issues (www.cgfi.org). Formerly he was a senior policy analyst for the United
States Department of State, where he won the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement. He is the co-author, with
atmospheric physicist Fred Singer, of the book, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years (Blue Ridge Summit,
Pennsylvania: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006). Readers may write Avery at Post Office Box 202, Churchville, Virginia, 24421. Email:
cgfi@rica.net
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues
Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity