Frack This

Did a post called “Risky Business” 12/16/13 about fracking

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5926528617816553064#editor/target=post;postID=3217552040043574204;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=0;src=postname

This is more a “Yeah for Fracking”. The usual suspects are against it; the same crowd behind gun control laws, the “Colorado Model” and Common Core. Yepper, the (p)regressives.

http://coloradopeakpolitics.com/2014/11/26/touch-fractivist-calls-booming-economy-bad/

Add, “not in my backyard”.

http://coloradopeakpolitics.com/2013/07/26/melodramatic-millionaire-jared-polis-cries-his-family-are-fracking-refugees-from-vacation-home/

Why am I for it? JOBS, damnit. Lots and lots of good paying blue collar jobs in the $15 to $40 an hour range with lots of overtime. Young people able to stay in the area instead of moving to Denver to find a job.  Money is being pumped into the local economy creating more jobs. Tax revenues up and school funding up.

The picture below is a wind generator factory owned by a Danish company. Opened with great fanfare. Major tax breaks. Special classes by the local community college to train workers. The place is on financial life support.

Due West is this building going up with no special treatment, no public funds, required by the owners. Surprise, oilfield business.

This is happening all over the area. Did I mention jobs? This is just one street.

Growth brings problems. It has taken me several weeks to find the apartment I’m moving into after the first of the year (the test driver job fell through). The area has an acute housing shortage. Driving on the local roads can be a challenge. I’ll live with it, even though I’ve no patience, and not complain. Every one of those beasts means another job.

To those who want to shut all this down, want to dictate how others should live, etc., I offer these words. Go fuck yourself.

My late father years ago said an environmentalist was, "A guy who bought his five acres last year". One time, when the smoke from a local sawmill drifted into town (older times when they burned sawdust and scraps), someone spoke to my father, "Bob, isn't this smoke terrible"?

My father, sniffing the air,said, "I smell a $100,000 a year payroll".

One of my sons has been unemployed or underemployed, caught in the Temp agency bog, for a long time. Recently, he has started a decent paying job. So good to have my smiling son back instead of the disgruntled one. Perhaps, only those who have been unemployed for a long period can appreciate what having a job means. That is why I get enraged by those special snowflakes who are willing to see others suffer for their defined "greater good".

One last note. This growth is coming from technology applied, mainly, to existing oil wells. Very little wildcatting is involved. The resource has always been there.

And a final opinion. Every dollar being spent isn't going to some foreign enemy.

Risky Business

Northeast Colorado is in the midst of an oil boom. Unlike North Dakota, a substantial infrastructure is already in place. Also, unlike North Dakota, the area is well populated. A decent article about the energy development is here.

http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_24721419/new-oil-boom-lurks-denver-julesburg-basin?source=most_viewed

http://oilshalegas.com/niobrarashale.html

What isn’t discussed are some of the political implications. While the gun control uproar has been the most prominent reported part of the 51^st State effort, the core issue is, as always, money. The tax revenues are being grabbed by the dense population area representatives, and spent in the urban areas. The location of the revenue sources, rural areas, gets the problems, and not the benefits. Add a renewable energy mandate, that is not economically feasible, rammed down the rural area’s throats by the urban voters, and the anger grows.

http://www.51ststate.org/tp50/default.asp?ID=314893

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_24461077/11-counties-weigh-secession-from-colorado-formation-51st

One obvious danger of all this development isn’t being discussed. That is a possible contamination of the Ogallala Aquifer. Already being depleted faster than it is replenished, contamination would be a major economic disaster for a wide region. Look at the maps, please. See the overlap? The aquifer is relative shallow as is the drilling in the DJ basin, as shown here.

I’m in no way qualified to answer these questions, but as a resident of the area, I feel free to ask them. What I see on the surface is a lot of care by the petroleum industry to mitigate the impact of their operations. What is happening underground? We know contamination can happen. Natural gas has bubbled up in streams in the Silt, CO area (Garfield County).

As always, development brings risk. Questioning risk management and mitigation is appropriate.