North Dakota Wastes Natural Gas Even as we Scramble to Pull it from the Marcellus Shale

There is an interesting article in the New York Times today about the practice of Gas Flaring in North Dakota.  As oil prices increase, companies are rushing to drill new wells in the Bakken shale field.  One result of drilling for oil is finding natural gas as a by product.  The Times reports that as much as 30% of the natural gas produced by oil drilling is flared, or burned off, into the sky.  This is done because it is impractical to collect and store it for travel from the Bakken shale field.

From the article:

Every day, more than 100 million cubic feet of natural gas is flared this way — enough energy to heat half a million homes for a day.

Economics is cited as the reason for the wasteful practice.  After all, the oil is the prize here, not the natural gas, not with prices for it pushed low due to an abundunt supply.  Pipelines and collection equipment cost money and quite frankly it is cheaper to burn off the gas than invest in the infrastructure necessary to get it to market.

However, it is stunning to see the commodity that is so highly prized here in our area wastefully burned off into the sky over North Dakota.  After all, V & M and other pipe producers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars gearing up for the fracking boom that is getting under way.  Wasn't it just a few years ago that natural gas prices were three times what they are now due to supply shortages?  I remember people in the late 2000's calling Ron Verb's radio show and complaining incessantly about the cost of heating their homes.

Hopefully some enterprising company can see an opportunity for this fuel rather than letting it heat the sky.

Big Bang Theory Season One Episode List T-Shirt & iPad2 Covers

Rust Belt Pop has a new Big Bang Theory T-shirt up for sale, thanks to Cafepress's license with the network.  It's the Big Bang Theory Season One Episode List black tee.  This design is available as tees for men and women, on his and her pajamas and on hoodies.  The design is also available on a cover for the iPad and iPad2.  I enjoy the show and the episode titles have always caught my eye.  This fun design captures the titles from the first season.  Later seasons may follow as time permits.
 

Obamacare Leads to One Million Young Adults Getting Health Care

The provision in the president's new healthcare bill that allows young adults to stay on their parent's health coverage is credited with insuring an additional one million people in the first three months of this year, according to the surveys in this article.  These are people that would have been removed from their parent's coverage when they graduated from college.  The new law allows them to remain covered until they are 26.

This is a spot of good news amid gloomy economic stories.  I know many people are opposed to this law but these are a million people who will use regular doctor's visits to treat illness or chronic problems instead of flooding emergency rooms.  Once the health care law is fully implemented I believe we'll see the benefits of greater coverage.

Some Ideas for Putting People to Work, Reducing Crime and Building Rather Than Destroying

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. ... Is there no other way the world may live?- President Dwight Eisenhower


While perusing news sites I saw that another home invasion occurred in Youngstown.  Earlier in the day I was thinking about the jobs speech President Obama will give tonight and BAM, a light bulb went off.  Remember the COPS program that was so successful in the 1990's and the early 2000's?  Community Oriented Poilicing?  I think it's time to bring it back on a grand scale as part of an integrated plan to rescue cities such as Youngstown, Detroit and Buffalo.

We clearly have many problems that negatively affect urban cities in the United States so why not attack a few at once? What I'm suggesting is an approach with four main points:

1. Cease operations this year in Afghanistan and bring the troops home.  It's been ten years, Al-Qaeda is out of the country and we've spent enough money and lost enough lives.  Get these people out of harm's way and bring them back here where some of their training can be put to use.  Also, this frees up an enormous amount of money to use on the other three points.  For instance...
2. Reduce the number of blighted properties in cities.  This is an infrastructure project that doesn't require nice weather.  Take some of our peace dividend money and use it to hire construction firms to knock down abandoned homes.  Municipalities have done the hard work of identifying abandoned properties and created land banks to take possession.  Now the cities need the resources to remove the structures.  This may also decrease available housing stock and help the real estate market.
3. Hire police to secure the neighbohoods currently under siege.  We have plenty of good people trapped in bad neighborhoods.  These are people who only leave their houses when necessary.  We'll have plenty of soldiers who may want to pursue law enforcement as a career and they'll have experience with securing an area from hostile entities.  This one is a no-brainer.    
4. Hire teachers and provide training for those needing it.  One of the great points made in Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers was that many of the soldiers profiled in the book came back to the United States and became teachers, engineers and builders.  After seeing so much destruction they were eager to build and help others.  We should take that discipline they have and their ability to adapt to difficult situations and transition it right into teaching and building.  One of the reasons employers don't come to our area is because  they claim we have an ill prepared workforce.  Well, let's create a wave of teachers, professionals and tradesmen who can lead others.  Then make education a requirement of public assistance and train a workforce that potential employers will desire.

This all sounds expensive and it will be but this is investment in America.  This is using our money to build ourselves up rather than waging war. Whether we want to admit it or not we have a dangerous generation of people out there who feel lost and forgotten. These problems can be fixed if we are willing to make the effort.

We Did So Land on the Moon

Do you know those people who claim we didn't land on the Moon?  What's so disheartening about these folks is that despite all their reasons for why we didn't or couldn't accomplish such a feat, most of the time their disbelief boils down to a lack of imagination.  They think of the enormity of such a project and since they cannot imagine what it would take to get men to the Moon.  The equipment that would have to be built and the math, Oh My God the Math!  They've grown up jaded in a world where we've stopped exploring on a grand scale.

Luckily there are pictures.


From the NASA.gov website:

At the Apollo 17 site, the tracks laid down by the lunar rover are clearly visible, along with the last foot trails left on the moon. The images also show where the astronauts placed some of the scientific instruments that provided the first insight into the moon's environment and interior.

"We can retrace the astronauts' steps with greater clarity to see where they took lunar samples," said Noah Petro, a lunar geologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who is a member of the LRO project science team.

All three images show distinct trails left in the moon's thin soil when the astronauts exited the lunar modules and explored on foot. In the Apollo 17 image, the foot trails, including the last path made on the moon by humans, are easily distinguished from the dual tracks left by the lunar rover, which remains parked east of the lander.

"The new low-altitude Narrow Angle Camera images sharpen our view of the moon's surface," said Arizona State University researcher Mark Robinson, principal investigator for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC). "A great example is the sharpness of the rover tracks at the Apollo 17 site. In previous images the rover tracks were visible, but now they are sharp parallel lines on the surface."

Loving the Chevy Volt

I read the article the Warren Tribune had up about the Chevy Volt being on display at the Canfield Fair with great interest.  It was a nice article but it was followed up with some comments that ran toward the negative.  The Volt is a good looking, electric car that runs on a plug in charge.  It also has a back up motor powered by gasoline.

The comments ranged from the informed that crunch the numbers to see if the car is worth the price to the ludicrous that insist on bringing politics into every situation (liberals have no common sense, liberals this, liberals that).  I think a couple salient points are being missed.

First , the Chevy Volt is an American vehicle utilizing state of the art technology to put an electric vehicle on the road.  I have to believe there's going to be a premium cost for that.  The government has come through with a tax break for electric vehicles (not just the Volt, either).  With the tax breaks a Volt runs about $32,780.  Right now that's what this technology is going to cost.  A few years from now, after the technology is more readily available, prices will inevitably come down.

Second, and this may be the biggest advantage to the Volt, purchasing one allows the buyer to transform their philosophy to action.  If you really want to get away from foreign oil, if you want to reduce your carbon footprint and you want to buy American, then this is a car that allows you to accomplish those things.

Finally, it's the buyer's money. They can spend it however they want.  People have been buying Hummers and Excursions for years because that's what they want.  If someone wants to spend their money on adopting an early electric vehicle, then they should have the freedom to do that.  That's what we're all about, right?