A new, built-from-the-ground-up news organization funded by founder of E-Bay

News broke this week that the founder of E-Bay is starting a news organization with major involvement by the reporter who broke so many stories about the NSA spying fiasco.

It will be a brand new, digital-only, full-scope media outlet. Plans are it will cover news, sports, and business in addition to hard-hitting investigative journalism.

Will be funded with an initial $250 million dollar investment.

Pierre Omidyar, the founder of E-Bay, was one of the people shopped as a possible buyer for The Washington Post earlier this year. Jeff Bezos bought the Post for reported $250 million.

Another frontier is open.

Mr. Omidyar decided to put the money he would have otherwise used to buy the Post into something completely new.

Continue reading “A new, built-from-the-ground-up news organization funded by founder of E-Bay”

Creative use of MOOCs: Keep intro or difficult courses *off* your GPA

The education frontier is open. This has odd implications.

In some academic fields, GPA is everything. This creates pressure to take easy courses and avoid difficult courses outside your major.

However, if you want to get knowledgeable (when that concept diverges from getting educated), you might need to learn a bit about the sciences, or computer programming, or philosophy but the drawback is it might hit your GPA. Or you might want an intro to an area before you go on-the-GPA-record.

If that is the case, think about taking a massive open online course.

Continue reading “Creative use of MOOCs: Keep intro or difficult courses *off* your GPA”

The rules have all changed

(Cross-post from my other blog, Attestation Update, with minor changes)

Seth Godin has a new piece called “Post….“

If you read his article or my comments and don’t immediately understand the point, you have a serious gap in your awareness of the radical changes taking place around us.

He lists 14 things that are now in the past, such as: Continue reading “The rules have all changed”

N.D. oil production passes 900,000 in August

Monthly increase was just over 4% from the revised July amounts. Preliminary August production number was 911,496 barrels per day. Revisions are usually quite small.

Amy Dalrymple has some comments from D.M.R. Director Lynn Helms on what the next two months of data might include. In her article, N.D. oil production tops 900,000 barrels per day, she reports:

Helms said he expects to see another significant production increase in September, but an unusually wet October brought a lot of work to a halt in the state’s busiest county, Helms said.

McKenzie County, which has about one-third of the state’s 183 drilling rigs, has had to close gravel roads to heavy trucks in recent days, which means rigs can’t move and trucks can’t haul water and sand needed for hydraulic fracturing.

So, expect a big increase in September, but not so much in October.

Here are three graphs to show the increase. Click on any of them to see a larger version.

Production by month from ’04 through 10-13:

 10-13 by month 04-13

 Statewide and Bakken only:

Continue reading “N.D. oil production passes 900,000 in August”

Overview of shale oil & gas along with need for sustainable development for booming areas

Professor Tom Tunstall has a great TEDx San Antonio presentation. He provides a high level overview of shale oil and gas.

Update 12-16-13:  You can view his presentation directly on YouTube. I watched again today. It is superb.

Update 12-27-13:  Eagle Ford Shale blog has a list of seven takeaways – Eagle Ford Growth Means Opportunity – TED Talk – Video .

Update: Why does the Eagle Ford shale field run across the border into Mexico but production stops at the Rio Grande? Political and economic issues depress production in Mexico. As I’ve long said, you don’t have to benefit from the energy under the ground.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyqMYLedpdg]

He also goes into detail about the needs for local communities in boom areas to focus not just on roads, but the full range of infrastructure, such as K-12 schools, water treatment, hospitals & clinics, parks, and community meeting places. The full range of quality-of-life issues have a major role in people deciding where to live.

Wise local leaders will try to develop other industries that will sustain when there is a slowdown in energy. As a starter idea, he suggests higher end agriculture, such as raising olives and processing olive oil. Hunting, geothermal, water desalinization are other options. 

Great video. Prof Tunstall’s section is about 10 minutes long. Well worth your time.

His portion starts about the 7 hour, 11 minute point. Here is the link again: http://new.livestream.com/tedx/TEDxSanAntonio/videos/32045908 

Empoprise celebrates 10 year blogiversary

My friend, John Bredehoft, celebrates his tenth blogiversary today at Empoprise-BI. His post highlighting that achievement is Ten-year anniversary of my first blog post.

He writes five blogs each addressing a different topic, one of which I mention here frequently: tymshft

That’s quite an achievement.  Congratulations John!

Downside of the oil boom – towns struggling to provide infrastructure

Bloomberg describes the struggle many towns in Montana are facing from the ripple effects of the oil boom:  Montana Towns Struggle With Oil Boom Cost as Dollars Flee.

The wear on roads, increased school enrollment, and load on sewage treatment are a few of the issues hitting small communities on the periphery of the North Dakota boom. Lack of housing in Williston is pushing people to drive from nearby communities, which do not have an ability to rapidly increase their public services.

Here’s a brief picture: Continue reading “Downside of the oil boom – towns struggling to provide infrastructure”

State regulators approve slice-and-dice operation in North Dakota

The N.D. Public Service Commission approved the Thunder Spirit Wind LLC wind farm near Hettinger, N.D.  The project is designed to generate 150-megawatts from 75 towers.

Construction is planned for this fall (’13), or at least parts will be ordered so the project can grab the federal tax credits.

From the Dickinson Press:  ND regulators approve $300M wind farm project in Adams County.

My previous posts:

Pipeline leak near Tioga, North Dakota

The Dickenson Press seems to have been the first to report on the leak: Pipeline leak spills 20,600 barrels of oil near Tioga.

The pipeline is reportedly 20 years old.

The farmer reporting the leak smelled the oil for a few days before he saw puddles in the field and oil sticking to his tires.

Continue reading “Pipeline leak near Tioga, North Dakota”

Followup on one of the worlds I’ll never visit

I previously mentioned 2 worlds explored that I’ll never enter.

One of those worlds has been closed until further notice.

The alleged mastermind behind the website Silk Road is now in federal custody. The person known publicly as Dread Pirate Roberts was arrested last week. His site is alleged to be the vehicle for sales of large amounts of illegal drugs.

Continue reading “Followup on one of the worlds I’ll never visit”

“If Bakeries Worked Like Wind Power”..

…is the name of a fun fable at Why not wind power.

The story tells of Kevin who starts a bakery making sugar-free baked goods made possible only with heavy subsidies from the government. Even with that, his baked goods are more expensive than the other bakers in town. 

Continue reading ““If Bakeries Worked Like Wind Power”..”

Another 600 million barrels of recoverable oil the experts didn’t know about a year ago – Peak Oil #31

Add a fresh discovery of up to 600,000,000 barrels of oil 300 miles off the Newfoundland coast to the list of oil that no one knew existed before it was found, evaluated, and an estimate made of recoverable oil.

One of a long list of fatal fallacies in Peak Oil doctrine is that no more oil will ever be discovered.

Continue reading “Another 600 million barrels of recoverable oil the experts didn’t know about a year ago – Peak Oil #31”

2 private companies have proven ability to lift supplies to space station

The Cyngus resupply capsule reached the international space station and successfully docked on Sunday (9-29-13). The capsule carried 1,300 pounds of supplies.  In a month it will be loaded with trash and unneeded equipment and burned up in reentry.

That means both Orbital Sciences Corp and SpaceX have the capability to launch privately developed supply ships on top of privately developed rockets to safely deliver supplies into space.

Continue reading “2 private companies have proven ability to lift supplies to space station”

What’s your guess for highest level of Bakken production? How about 2,000,000 bopd in 2023?

Here’s the first estimate I’ve seen for the highest level of output for Bakken oil.

The graph predicts crossing the 1 million point in early 2014 (hard to tell a specific point on a graph that has a 40 year scale, but that’s what it looks like.)  About 2 million bopd in 2023 with a tail that falls back to a million in about 2038 dropping to around 400,000 in 2050. 

That would be above 1M bopd for about 20 years.

Check out the graph from Sachs Global Investment Research found at Bakken Shale:  Bakken Production Chart -Goldman Sachs.

Wow.

Oh. And that from a field that was producing  80,000 bopd a decade ago because none of the geology and engineering whizs had any idea how to get the oil out of the ground. 

From 80K bopd to 2,000k bopd in 2 decades. Wow.