N.D. oil production in 3/14 recovering from winter slump

Oil production in North Dakota hit 977,061 barrels per day (bopd) in March. Looking at the top of the trend line takes a bit of care. The initial report for November 2012 was 973,280 bopd. When another dozen wells reported results, the average production was 977,599 in November. The updates increased production data by 4,219 bopd. That means the March data is the record high for the initial report, but is still about 500 bopd behind the updated record high.

Here is a graph of the production with updated data, not the initial reports:

3-14 bakken and statewide

Background info:

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More good stuff on surveillance – 5/13

We are past the day-by-day dribble of compromised companies and products. The daily revelations of vaporized integrity have slowed to weekly or monthly. What is appearing now is a gradual realization that the companies running the tech we use every day just can’t be trusted, no matter what they say.

Here is my twelfth list of good stuff on our surveillance society that I’d like talk about but only have time to recommend with a quick comment.

3/31 – Schneier on Security – The Continuing Public/Private Surveillance Partnership– Public posturing by tech giants is merely that – posturing. The surveillance continues. There are 4 major sources of authority for the government surveillance.

When a federal player says a particular action isn’t taking place under a particular law, it is probably a true statement. How can that be?

Continue reading “More good stuff on surveillance – 5/13”

The minimum wage made unemployment worse during the Great Depression

Minimum wage laws also extended the Depression. That from Amity Shlaes, in The Minimum Wage Makes Depressions Worse.

In a lousy economy, forcing wages above the value of the output makes employment worse. When there is currency deflation the effect is compounded. Adding another layer of minimums every couple of years and slowly gathering more employers into the minimum wage rules further compounds the effect.

If you can’t afford the staff you have, and you can’t reduce wages, then what options are left? Lay off more employees. Shrink your company.

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Update on solar and wind power, 5/9 – solar #20

Here’s a few articles on the environmental issues with solar and wind energy. Since the uncontained, unresearched, unquantified environmental damage from slice-and-dicers and wing-toasters is not particularly good, I can’t call this series more good stuff like the other updates on this blog. So here are a few updates including more consequences of wind power, impact of natural gas, and two articles on solar facilities in California:

4/28 – Syracuse, byline AP – 4 dead after small plane crashes into South Dakota wind farm in fog Continue reading “Update on solar and wind power, 5/9 – solar #20”

10 pieces of everyday tech that weren’t around in the ancient days of 1970

Check out 10 Modern Technologies We Lived Without In Primitive, Pre-Millenial America

The change in 40 years, with pictures of the old and new stuff. Remember not having:

  • Microwave ovens
  • Hair dryers
  • Cell phones
  • TV remote controls
  • Personal Computers (versus a manual typewriter!)
  • Video games
  • Digital music
  • Lead-free paint
  • Pocket calculators
  • Video cassette recorders

No better time to be alive than today!

(Hat tip – Behind the Black)

More good stuff on the open frontiers in space and technology – 5-5-14

More good stuff on the space and technology open frontiers – SpaceX trying to get some of the military launches, drones in agriculture, and criminals using tech to steal pot and poach rhinos.

Space

4/25 – Popular Mechanics – SpaceX Sues to Break Spy Satellite Launch Monopoly – Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontiers in space and technology – 5-5-14”

Ethanol makes global warming worse

A new study funded by the federal government reached the conclusion that ethanol made from residue after corn harvesting releases 7% more greenhouse gases that straight gasoline.

The reason for the surprise is that the study considers the ancillary effects of biofuels. For example, when the residual is left on the ground, it improves the soil’s ability to absorb CO2. When the increased CO2 from non-absorption into the ground is considered, biofuels make the environment worse.

You can read more:

Doubling greenhouse gas

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How did we get to the place where we can ask “Why Does 1% of History Have 99% of the Wealth”?

Why we are so much better off than 200 years ago? Explained in 3 minutes. Check out the video by Prof. Dierdre McCloskey:

 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0nsKBx77EQ&feature=player_embedded]

 

Here’s my 200 word summary:

Until 1800, the average person made the inflation-adjusted equivalent to $3 a day. It’s been that way for thousands of years. Starting in 1800, a graph of average income looks like a hockey stick, going almost straight up after being flat for thousands of years.

Why?

Continue reading “How did we get to the place where we can ask “Why Does 1% of History Have 99% of the Wealth”?”

More good stuff on the open frontiers in energy & education – 4-29

It’s a wide open frontier in energy & education: why shale unlikely to boom elsewhere, U.S. getting greener because of shale, & one stat to show why higher education is in economic distress.

Energy

Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontiers in energy & education – 4-29”

What a really good Bakken well looks like, or, with these numbers do you really care if a well drops daily production by two-thirds in a year?

If you could make an investment in a productive asset that would have a gross return just under four times your initial amount in 12 months, would you care how quickly the investment fell apart after that?

Let me be more specific. If you could invest $8M in an oil well that produced $30.7M of oil in the first 12 months of production, would you care how fast the production dropped after that? Would you care if the well had that horrid Bakken decline rate?

Continue reading “What a really good Bakken well looks like, or, with these numbers do you really care if a well drops daily production by two-thirds in a year?”

More good stuff on the open technology frontiers – 4-24

Have lots of articles on the open frontiers to comment on. Will break into several posts. Today, the amazing wide open frontier of publishing:

Publishing

3/25 – Amazon – Reaching for His Dream. At 40. – Mr. Barry Davis had a book in him but devoted himself to getting educated, working as an engineer and raising his children. At 40 he wrote his first book. Nobody in the industry would touch the book.

Why? No audience. Nobody will buy it.

Until….

Continue reading “More good stuff on the open technology frontiers – 4-24”

More good stuff on the Bakken – dumping, new rules for filter socks – 4-24

Here’s a few quick notes on interesting news that I won’t cover in a separate post: trucker caught dumping saltwater, new regs for filter socks.

4/9 – Million Dollar Way – The North American Shale Revolution is “For Real”; Won’t Easily Be Duplicated Elsewhere – Continue reading “More good stuff on the Bakken – dumping, new rules for filter socks – 4-24”

Bird tally at Ivanpah in March ‘13

ReWire discusses the March 2013 compliance report from Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System: Bird Deaths Continue at Ivanpah Solar.

Mr. Clarke summarizes the report by explaining that in March, 22 of 55 dead or injured birds were clearly injured by the solar flux. Most of the rest were sufficiently decomposed that the cause of death couldn’t be determined.

Mr. Clarke is concerned the heat may be so high that there isn’t enough left of smaller birds to identify them at all. Any such birds in that category wouldn’t be included in the official count.

The March casualties took place while the facility was operating at 55% of capacity, according to Mr. Clarke’s research. The mortality will likely be higher when the plant sustains maximum output.

The compliance report for March can be found here. I browsed through it, although at 967 pages, there is a bit too much for me to absorb. A lot of it is way over my head.

I looked at table 9 of exhibit 9 on page 890. That lists the avian mortality and injury for March. I noticed a few things of interest to me.

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Question: What are “streamers” at a wing-toasting solar facility? (solar #19)

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(photo by James Ulvog)

Answer: Birds that fly into the solar flux at the top of the solar collector and ignite, producing a trail of smoke as they fall to the ground. Thus, a streamer.

That is the word used by the people who work at the Ivanpah solar facility, according to an article at ReWire by Chris Clarke: Federal Lab Offers Grim Look at Solar Harm to Wildlife. The article summarizes a few pieces of information from a report from a lab of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. You can read the report for yourself here.

Do you suppose it is a bad sign that people working at a solar farm have a special word to casually describe birds that fall out of the sky after being toasted?

I picture movies about World War II in the air over Europe.  Remember those views of an armada of bombers?  One of the lumbering B-17s takes a flak burst, starts streaming smoke from an engine on fire, and slowly spirals into the ground. A streamer.

While staff from the FWS Office of Law Enforcement department were on site they saw a “streamer event” every 2 minutes. That could be dust particles or it could be a cloud of insects, as claimed by the staff who work at the facility. OLE did observe birds (plural) fly into the solar flux and incinerate.

Perhaps the California regulators ought to know how many of those thirty incidents per hour are birds and how many are humongous clouds of concentrated dust drifting hundreds of feet in the air before they issue any more wing-toaster permits.

Undercounts of birds and no counts of butterflies

Continue reading “Question: What are “streamers” at a wing-toasting solar facility? (solar #19)”