Jim Ulvog – Page 29 – Outrun Change

Increasing employment in Bakken?

Workover rig, immediately north of Williston. Photo by James Ulvog.

Update: Greetings to readers arriving from The Million Dollar Way! Enjoy! Oh, by the way MDW, you are very welcome. For other readers, if you enjoy my writing on energy in general, Bakken in particular, and the wide open frontier of the energy revolution, somewhere around one-quarter of the credit for what I know goes to the learning provided by MDW.

I’ll make a guess we will be hearing lots more stories of hiring in Bakken. Some recent articles:

Two articles on oil companies hiring fracking crews
Scuttlebutt is staffing shortages to develop
Two articles on Target Logistics converting crew camp into hotel

12/29 – Grand Forks Herald at Dickinson press – Oil companies hiring fracking crews in Bakken – Job Service North Dakota said there are 60 companies wanting to staff up fracking crews. Each crew will need between 45 and 65 workers, so that something in the range of 300 or 350 jobs in the new year.

Let’s extend that out. The Million Dollar Way helps us in a post asking Worker Shortage Looming In The Bakken on 12/30.

It takes about two or three days to frack a well. Assume two wells per crew per week. That would be 12 wells a week for 6 crews, or somewhere around 48 wells in a four-week month. Keep in mind that’s on top of whatever fracking crews are in the field now.

Continue reading “Increasing employment in Bakken?”

More uses for small drones, some good ideas, some unsettling

Image courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com before they merged into Adobe Stock.

Drone technology marches forward, regardless of whether you or I think it is a good idea. A few recent article:

Incorporating drones into a home security system.
LA Sheriff starts to use drones
US Navy experimenting with swarms of drone ships
ISIS using off-the-shelf quadcopters to drop small bombs.

1/3 – Engadget.com – Your next home security system could deploy patrol drones – A company has developed a security system with a learning algorithm which ‘learns’ the normal routine at your home. When something happens outside the range of normal, the system can deploy drones to put several cameras on the situation.

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More amazing news from the open frontier of space

Falcon 9 landing. Credit Flickr. Courtesy of SpaceX who has placed their photos in the public domain.

News from space exploration continues to amaze. Consider:

Video of first time SpaceX recovered a booster
China sees first commercial launch on government rocket
Private sector, or what passes for it, in China gets into the launch business
EU’s GPS satellites having lots of unexplained clock failures

Video of the first vertical recovery of a rocket – Beyond the Black highlights What happened at SpaceX the first time they landed a first stage – SpaceX had a bunch of camera operators recording when it tried to recover a booster. Great video. National Geographic produced a documentary on the successful effort. Check it out:

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Amazing capabilities in computer tech

Is that robot telling other robots what parts to pull in an Amazon warehouse? Or is it searching databases to develop your profile before picking which call center operator to connect you to? Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Here are a few recent reports of astounding things IT and AI can do:

Amazon warehouses are so heavily automated it only takes about sixty seconds of human labor to pull, pack, and ship your order.
Call centers can construct a profile of you while the phone is ringing.
In our society, where if there isn’t video to illustrate and prove a story, the story didn’t happen, it is getting easier to fabricate video.

10/6/16 – CNN – Amazon only needs a minute of human labor to ship your next package – Astounding video to go with the article. I am amazed at the level of automation in their warehouses.

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Tally of space launches in last two decades

Falcon 9 liftoff, carrying 10 Iridium satellites into orbit. Credit Flickr. Courtesy of SpaceX who has placed their photos in the public domain.

Behind the Black has tallied the number of space launches by country and by US company, by year from 1998 through 2016.

Mr. Zimmerman provides the tally at Launch industry trends, based on recent history on 1/11. He provides more observations on the trends in the January 13, 2017 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast.

For a more overall view (and under fair use) I added up the launches from 1998 through 2006 and then from 2007 through 2016. I chose a break of 2007 because that is when Lockheed Martin and Boeing formed their joint venture, United Launch Alliance. Here are the long-term trends:

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Oil production in North Dakota drops 1% in November

Above graph shows the average daily production in North Dakota statewide and in the Bakken field. Output in November dropped to 1,033,693 bopd from October production of 1,043,318 (revised), a change of 9,625, or down 0.92%.

Mr. Lynn Helms has some observations, reported by Amy Dalrymple, ND Oil Production Stays Above 1 Million Barrels in November.

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SpaceX back in space with successful launch and recovery of Falcon 9 booster

Falcon 9 at Vandenber SLC 4E, ready to life 10 Iridium satellites into orbit. Credit Flickr. Courtesy of SpaceX who has placed their photos in the public domain. — Falcon 9 at Vandenberg SLC 4E, ready to lift 10 Iridium satellites into orbit. Credit Flickr. Courtesy of SpaceX who has placed their photos in the public domain.

I just watched SpaceX lift 10 satellites into low-earth orbit for Iridium. This will allow Iridium to replace their constellation of communication sats. Another 71 sats will go up, of which 60 more will be lifted by SpaceX.

Here are merely two of the super cool aspects of this launch.

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Update on environmental damage from wind power

WInd farms will soon get 30 year long permits to take out those birds. Image courtesy of DollarPhotoClub prior to their merger into Adobe Stock.

Just a few of the recent articles providing updates on slice-and-dicers damage in general and status of North Dakota wind ~~farms~~ plants in particular.

Wyoming project may get specific permission to kill eagles
All wind ~~farms~~ plants get broad permission to kill eagles for 30 years
Massive subsidies for wind power, which is intermittent and unreliable, meaning it is often unavailable when needed
Updates on two N.D. turbine farms

12/8/16 – Denver Post – Wyoming wind project may get permit to kill eagles – The Chokecherry-Sierra Madre wind ~~farm~~ plant, which will start with 500 slice-and-dicers and may expand to 1,000 bird-choppers, could get two critical permits by next month (January).

The first permit will allow destroying eagle nests that are currently unoccupied. I’m guessing that will chase away eagles from the kill zone.

The second permit will allow the facility to kill 14 golden eagles a year for five years. They can also off 2 bald eagles a year for five years.

The slicer ~~farm~~ plant will have to do mitigation for the golden eagles they expect to kill, but not the bald eagles.

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The wide open frontier of drone technology

Image courtesy of Dollar Photo Club before they merged into Adobe Stock.

Several recent articles reveal research into weaponizing drones:

Russian nuke-armed drone sub
DARPA trying to develop swarm capability
successful test of a swarm
converting full size plane into drone with drop-in package

12/8 – Bill Gertz at Washington Free Beacon – Russia Tests Nuclear-Capable Drone Sub – Published reports in Russia indicates their military is developing a drone sub that can travel 6,200 miles, dive to 3,280 feet, and zip along at 56 knots.

Most troublesome is it will equipped to carry a nuclear weapon, possibly up to the massively huge size of 100 megatons.

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Tally of planned launches for 2017

Ariane 5 on pad for VA227 launch. Credit: Arianespace.

I’m constantly amazed at the activity in space. Maybe I’m just slow to catch on but there is a lot of work getting stuff into orbit.

Spaceflight 101 reports their tally of planned space shots in their post Spaceflight101 Launch Calendar.

I will modify their tally by adding another 15 launches by China as reported by GBTimes, China to attempt close to 30 space launches in 2017. Behind the Black explains that China is somewhat secretive about their space plans, so they don’t announce all their expected launches.

Previously mentioned the tally of actual launches for 2016.

In other news, Behind the Black reports India considers going to Jupiter and Venus. Their first manned flights are planned for 2024. BtB also reports Arianespace wins two contracts, aims for a dozen launches in 2017. Article guesses that Arianspace is getting these contracts because SpaceX has a backlog longer than their current capacity can deliver timely. Article indicates SpaceX needs to up their launch rate to stay competitive.

So, here is the list of planned launches. I also include the lift vehicle. That data is useful for me in order to keep straight what rockets belong to whom.

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Update on cost to Penn State for that abomination in their football program. Massive cumulative amount is in the range of a cost of doing business.

Pennsylvania State University (Penn State). Fisher Fine Arts Library building. Photo courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com

The sexual abuse in the Penn State football program has actually had a large dollar cost for the University. Will look at that in a moment and then consider the magnitude of the cost in relation to revenue.

This is in addition to the minor, now-in-the-distant-past, merely-a-cost-of-doing-business penalty paid by the football program itself. See my previous discussion: NCAA agrees to restore Penn State’s wins. Apparently sanctions for covering up child molestation are merely temporary in addition to being mild.

Financial costs to date

As for the university itself, the AP at USA Today reports Penn State abuse scandal costs approach a quarter-billion. Reported costs are up to about $237,000,000. That’s in the range of a quarter of a billion dollars.

Here is my recap of the costs mentioned in the article, summarized in the way I put them together:

Continue reading “Update on cost to Penn State for that abomination in their football program. Massive cumulative amount is in the range of a cost of doing business.”

Tally of space launches in 2016

Antares booster on launch pad. Courtesy of Orbital ATK. Used with permission.

Here is a list of actual launches in 2016. Next post will describe the planned launches for 2017.

Parabolic Arc – USA, China Led World in Launches in 2016 – Supercool article describes the launch successes and failures in 2016, including a tally of launches by country and life vehicles. Recap of status of all the US players.

I pulled the tally of attempts and successes, including the launch pad failure of a Falcon 9 as an attempt, even though it didn’t get off the ground and thus is not actually an attempt:

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An illustration why mining asteroids would be lucrative. Also, a startup to provide world-wide ‘net access

Amazing things going on in the world of private space exploration:

One asteroid in the asteroid belt has massive amounts of ice; why that is important
OneWeb is moving forward with plans to launch a constellation of small sats to provide access to the internet across the planet

12/16 – Tech Times – Dwarf Planet Ceres Is Full Of Water: Biggest Asteroid in Solar System Was An Ocean World – NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has taken images of dwarf planet Ceres and determined it does in fact contain massive amounts of frozen water. The polar regions of the asteroid contain layers of ice from 30 to 300 feet thick.

This is a really big deal because water is critical for space travel. Obvious use is hydration of astronauts and food preparation. Not so obviously, the H2O can be broken down into oxygen for breathing and hydrogen for propulsion.

Combine that idea with the cost of getting anything into orbit, which is somewhere north of $100,000 a pound. More on that in a moment. A gallon of water to drink could cost something in the range of a million dollars, give or take, to get into orbit.

Continue reading “An illustration why mining asteroids would be lucrative. Also, a startup to provide world-wide ‘net access”

North Dakota rig count trending up in late 2016

Drilling rig in North Dakota during October 2013 to go along with previous two pictures. Photo by James Ulvog. — Drilling rig in North Dakota during October 2013. This was taken same day as previous two pictures. Photo by James Ulvog.

The rig count is slowly increasing. Not a dramatic increase and nothing like the high point, but a noticeable change from the mid-20s in the spring and the 30s during the summer and fall.

By the way, this explains the slight change in employment in Williston mentioned in the previous post.

Here is a recap of the North Dakota rig count, all from Million Dollar Way, other than during my trip to Williston in November 2016.

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How a real hero responds when his Medal of Honor is mentioned: “That was one day in my life and it happened a long time ago.”

The quote above is from Bill Crawford, then a janitor at the US Air Force Academy, when asked by cadets if he was the person described in a history of WWII as having been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery under fire.

Before one of the cadets noted the similarity of names between this WWII hero on the page of the book and the janitor who kept the cadet squadron dormitory clean, Mr. Crawford was unobtrusive, doing his job diligently without any fuss.

The response of a real hero is someone who says some variation of he was just doing his job.

What was ‘his job’?

Well, here are a few articles to check out. I’ll then give some highlights. Continue reading “How a real hero responds when his Medal of Honor is mentioned: “That was one day in my life and it happened a long time ago.””