Fracking in the Permian Basin is down according to Bloomberg News. The number of fracking
crews peaked in May with 190 roaming the 80,000 square miles of the most
prolific oil field in the country. The December 1st count was 167 crews. Schlumberger, the biggest oil field
service provider in the world, is reporting a 15% drop in sales for the last
quarter in 2018. A triplet of factors is associated with the downturn including
a drop in crude prices, over-extended exploration budgets and a shortage of
pipeline takeaway. Perhaps the realization of Climate Change and the competitiveness of clean energy is part of
it too. The average Permian well is fracked 6 to 7 times and uses about 250,000
barrels of fresh water each time along with a number of fracking fluids
including acids, radioactive tracking isotopes, emulsifiers, diesel, biocides,
propylene glycol, lubricants, anti-corrosives and other toxic chemicals.
Texas utility provider Excel
plans to be fossil fuel free by 2050. But is that timely enough? According
to Dallas News, Excel, based in
Minneapolis, with over a quarter million customers in TX, would have to shut
down or sell its entire Texas generating portfolio which includes two coal
plants, two methane plants and a combination fuel oil -methane plant. Other
utilities have already shuddered three
coal plants this year in Texas.
Former Oilman and President George H W Bush was buried in Houston this week. During the 1988
presidential campaign he famously said, “Read my lips no new taxes.” Which he
went on to do. He also said, not so famously, “I will use the White House
effect to control the Green House effect.”
Which He did not do. Nor did any of those who followed him, frankly. Bill McKibben of 350.org wrote last
week in The New Yorker,” What has
defied expectations is the slowness of the response. The climatologist James Hansen testified before Congress
about the dangers of human-caused climate change thirty years ago. Since then,
carbon emissions have increased with each year except 2009 and the newest data
show that 2018 will set another record. Simple inertia and the human tendency
to prioritize short-term gains have played a role, but the fossil-fuel
industry’s contribution has been by far the most damaging. Alex Steffen, an
environmental writer, coined the term “predatory
delay” to describe “the blocking or slowing of needed change, in order to
make money off unsustainable, unjust systems in the meantime.” The behavior of
the oil companies, which have pulled off perhaps the most consequential deception in mankind’s history, is a prime example.”
Plastic factories
presently are seen as a petro-chemical growth area for the fossil fuel industry
but could these projections be wrong? The European Union voted this week 571 to
53 to ban single-use plastics such
as straws, plates, and cutlery by 2021. In India many hotels refuse to provide
bottled water and parks throughout Australia post signs reading “No polyethylene allowed.” England and
China also have restrictions on single use plastic. The World Economic Forum states that there is 50 million tons of plastic in the world’s oceans that could take
hundreds of years to degrade. The forum warned that there would be more plastic
than fish in weight in oceans by 2050. Meantime Exxon-Mobil continues to push through the permitting process to
build the largest plastics factory in the world at the Port of Corpus Christi.
Dallas-based Exxon-Mobil
agreed to buy 500 megawatts of wind and solar power to power its Permian Basin
fossil fuel production operations. Carolyn
Fortuna writes in CleanTechnic, “Hallelujah! But, wait. Should we cheer?”
Meantime Exxon has pledged to triple their methane production in the Permian by
2025. Fortuna continues, “Does bringing in renewable energy in the Permian
Basin — … — even start to make amends for Exxon Mobil’s incredible, lasting, and
shattering impacts on the planet of fossil fuel drilling and burning? ... Don’t
we need to get fossil fuels out of our buildings in order to slash US fossil
fuel use by 80% by 2050? …How does Exxon-Mobil’s expansive drilling in the
Permian Basin achieve those goals, even with a nod to wind and solar?” The Carbon Majors Report, prepared by Climate Accountability Institute last
year, found 25 corporations led by Exxon-Mobile were responsible for 1/2 of all
carbon emissions since 1988. In 1977, James
Black, an Exxon senior scientist, addressed the company’s top leaders,
writing, “There is general scientific agreement that the most likely manner in
which mankind is influencing the global climate is through carbon-dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuels.”
That’s a pretty clear statement from over 40 years ago. Dear Exxon, the epoch is over, did you not get the memo?
"Predatory delay" a term conceived by Alex
Steffen, is used to describe “the blocking or slowing of needed change, in
order to make money off unsustainable, unjust systems in the meantime.” The
pathos of the oil companies, and their enablers, including legislators and
politically- fired judges, have accomplished the most damning deception in the
history of mankind - "there's nothing wrong with our product" - a
prime example of predatory delay.
Predatory Delay?
The L’eau Est La Vie
resistance camp battling the Dallas-based Energy Transfer Bayou Bridge crude oil pipeline, running through
the heart of America’s biggest swamp, the Atchafalaya
Basin of Louisiana, won a victory in court this week. Louisiana State Judge Keith Comeaux found the corporation guilty of trespassing. He
fined them a perfunctory four-hundred-and fifty dollars. One-hundred-foot cypress and tupelo trees were bulldozed
and mulched, while barge mounted excavators tore through private property
without permission in order to meet shareholders completion date expectations.
Many at the feminist indigenous led
camp were arrested themselves for felony
trespassing despite having permission from the landowners to protect the
private property from ET CEO Kelsey Warren’s pipeliners. During the trial,
according to the Baton Rouge Advocate,
a philosophical question arose: Does the damage of trenching the wetlands and fail-safing more greenhouse gas releases by permitting additional fossil fuel infrastructure outweigh
strengthening Louisiana’s petrochemical
economy? At stake in the courtroom was whether Energy Transfer could be found guilty of trespassing and still be
allowed to seize the property ad hoc through eminent domain thereby
green-lighting the final segment of the 163-mile pipeline. Judge Comeaux, deferred and allowed Energy Transfer to seize the
property by stating, “The Court should not supplant the well-thought and
well-researched opinions of the various agencies that permitted this project,”
Comeaux wrote in his judgment. “Therefore, the Court finds that the proper
permitting has been done, and that the public purpose and necessity has been
proven by Bayou Bridge Pipeline.” Dockets for the criminal trials of the L’Eau Est
La Vie water protectors that
defended the property have not been set.
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