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As oil and gas exports surge, West Texas becomes the world’s “extraction colony”

96 points by howard941 8y ago

patagonia 8y ago
Texan here. I’m anti fossil fuels, pro solar and wind. I’ve stopped trying to have any conversations with other Texans about this topic. Texans are very pro fossil fuels, on balance. I’m saying this as an Austinite. It’s interesting to see this in the Texas Tribune. From time to time I have reason to drive through or fly over (I know, hypocrite) West Texas, and passing through the oil fields one can literally watch the world burn. It’s unreal. Edit: Just a note on the people in the energy industry. They’re good people on balance. I might have come across as incidentally disparaging people in the energy industry. I have many friends and family of friends that have spent their entire career in the industry. It’s like Silicon Valley and tech’s problems. NYC and the financial crisis. Economic and financial incentives supported by cultural norms. In Silicon Valley the confidence that technology will improve our future means sometimes it is developed without pause for impact. In Texas a strong Christian ethos encourages a certain view of “stewardship” of the earth that does not mesh well with the constantly evolving culture of environmentalism. But as people they’re good people.
- deleted 8y ago
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- freehunter 8y ago
  I never really had a strong opinion on mining until I drove through Wyoming and northern Nevada. I knew it wasn't ecologically friendly, but it wasn't happening near me so I never saw much impact. But after driving through there and seeing entire mountains halfway destroyed as the mining crews work their way through it... in a few more years, that mountain won't even exist anymore. Watching humans take an entire mountain down rock-by-rock is a humbling experience.
  - ip26 8y ago
    The worst part is humans only want a small fraction of the mountain, so the whole thing is chewed up and spat out into the land around the mountain. It would be a little better if we actually had a use for the whole mountain. The tar sands come to mind. The entire forest above the sands is literally scraped off the face of the earth, the sands removed, the oil removed from the sands, and then everything aside from the oil is left behind in huge swaths of desolate waste.
    - Danieru 8y ago
      Odd wording to describe a replanted forest as "desolate waste". If anything one may suspect you are not being fully honest to leave out the "then they spent millions to try and return to the forest to its original state."
      - captainperl 8y ago
        > Odd wording to describe a replanted forest as "desolate waste". I know you're trolling, but planting trees doesn't replace an entire ecosystem. Check out a palm oil plantation sometimes for what a desolate forest looks like.
        Danieru 8y ago
        Ah, so you were aware that the forests are replanted. You choose instead not to provide others with this information or inform that, but rather to editorialize. Now someone has asked you to justify how a replanted green forest is "desolate". Please keep on topic, we are talking about the tar sands not pal oil. Yes I know both have oil in the name but please understand they are not the same oil. Please for your own safety do not drink the tar sands. Now back to your statement. Do you retract your claim of desolation? Or can you provide any evidence to support your position. Please do not reference palm oil in relation to the tar sands. No palm trees grow in Fort Mac.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
- coding123 8y ago
  I just drove on the 10 through the area. They literally have these strange chimney columns with flames shooting out. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/energy/fracking-boom-waste-flares-light-prairie-unused-natural-gas-n186946 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/energy/fracking-boom-waste-... The entire area smells like a diesel truck stop.
  - patagonia 8y ago
    That is probably “burn off”. Flying over the fields at night one can get a really good idea of the industrial structure and scale involved. A horizontal scaffolding punctuated by these towers lit up at night by the burnoff creates a grid across the landscape that is beautiful and impressive but scary in its implications.
  - rory096 8y ago
    WSJ wrote an article about flaring this week: https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-booming-oilfield-natural-gas-can-be-free-11545906601 https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-booming-oilfield-natural-gas... Natural gas is so plentiful that spot prices at the West Texas hub turned negative last month. In general they're trading at about half the Louisiana hub. >One option for Permian operators with too much gas is to light it on fire, a practice known as flaring. Flaring levels reached record highs in the Permian last quarter, when companies burned an average of 407 million cubic feet a day, according to analysis of public data compiled by Rystad Energy, an energy consulting firm. >The resulting greenhouse-gas emissions are equivalent to the daily exhaust emitted by about 2.7 million cars, according to estimates from the World Bank and Environmental Protection Agency. >Texas has thus far allowed companies to flare freely. As of the end of November, state regulators hadn't denied a single permit request in more than five years, records show. But flaring isn’t always an option. Companies might not have the needed equipment set up in areas affected by pipeline outages. They also might have to pay landowners royalty payments for the gas they burn. And flaring gas on the spot means drillers miss out on more valuable products that come out of the ground with it, such as ethane, propane and butane, which are often processed out later.
    - fromthestart 8y ago
- nostromo 8y ago
  I'm pro-renewables too. But, like you, I'm also a hypocrite because I drive and fly and use plastics. I'm ok with American extraction because I think it's preferable to the two other options I see: 1. keep giving mountains of money to horrific regimes like Saudi Arabia and Russia or 2. halt the global economy until renewables are to scale.
  - drjasonharrison 8y ago
    Unfortunately the Texas crude is being exported because the Texas refineries can't refine it. So imports of "blood oil" will continue.
    - remarkEon 8y ago
      What is stopping us from upgrading those refineries so that we can refine it? Is it simply not worth the investment?
      - briandear 8y ago
        We already have been. The OP is simply wrong.
        shaklee3 8y ago
        I just fact checked, and indeed Texas does refine a whole lot: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_refining_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_refining_in_the_Un...
    - briandear 8y ago
      This is completely incorrect. Many Texas and Louisiana refineries can process West Texas crude. And billions are being invested in expanding that capacity even further. Texas refineries, aside from light crude are primarily equipped to process Canadian and Gulf Coast petroleum, which is the majority of their production, far from “blood oil.” Here’s some background: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Refiners-investing-to-capitalize-on-flood-of-13408890.php https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Ref... Ubtil 2016, it was illegal to export American crude. So the idea that West Texas Intermediate Crude is being exported because refineries can’t handle it is false, unless we are talking about the past two years: in 2014, where did all of that crude go? It was being refined. As the US is a net petroleum exporter, the idea that “blood oil” is a significant part of the American fuel supply is false. Canada exports dramatically more oil to the US than Saudi Arabia. The main reason that West Texas Intermediate trades at a discount wasn’t because of refining capacity, but because of the lack of pipelines to move the stuff.
- clairity 8y ago
  > In Texas a strong Christian ethos encourages a certain view of “stewardship” of the earth that does not mesh well with the constantly evolving culture of environmentalism. this is the hypocrisy that gets me. christian stewardship should be at the forefront of environmentalism, culture wars be damned, not being dragged along gnawing and gnashing. edit: hypocisy infects all of us, but christian hypocrisy really burns. rather than stiving for betterment while tolerating imperfection, as jesus taught, the general pretense is to cast a blind eye to all kinds of moral failings while acting as if everything is rosy. it's like sitting on a high horse covered in poop.
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    The modern evangelical philosophy that seizes the most attention today is often focused on prosperity of the individual. There’s no room for stewardship in any real sense. It’s cash in before it gets shut down.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - humanrebar 8y ago
    If you really want to convince someone of a new position, you should really refrain from attacking their identity and show that you really understand why they make the decisions they do before offering a better alternative. > ...stiving for betterment while tolerating imperfection, as jesus taught... And on a particular point, Jesus never taught that in those words. It might be a fair inference and application, but "how would Jesus vote" is a tricky argument to make. Especially considering that the U.S. has a representative democracy and not a direct democracy. Would Jesus vote for candidate A who favors a carbon tax and opposes ICE? Or candidate B who opposes late term abortion and wants better support for adoptive parents?
    - pjc50 8y ago
      > Would Jesus vote for candidate A who favors a carbon tax and opposes ICE? Or candidate B who opposes late term abortion and wants better support for adoptive parents? Well, that might be the options in the Democrat primary, but what about the Republican positions?
- rdiddly 8y ago
  The world's burning here too. Thanks to widespread and unusual drought, there are huge wildfires burning all summer long, all over the West. They start well before the usual beginning of "fire season" and continue well past the end of it, into the late autumn. Fire season is now 3/4 of the year. Pretty soon I suppose it'll be all year long. There's a hot wind and choking smoke everywhere. The sun is blacked-out if you're in the immediate vicinity, or else there's a thick smoke haze for miles. It feels like the goddamned apocalypse. It feels like you're in hell. Or rather, hell feels like this. Because those who came up with the concept of hell, based it on this. It was one of their worst experiences of divine retribution. Along with floods and storms etc., and those are coming fast & furious now too. On TV here comes another car commercial. The disconnect is amazing. This shit needs to stop TODAY, if there's to be any hope of stopping or even slowing the catastrophe already in motion. But "good people" are not getting it. Certain other people work overtime to make sure they don't get it. And of course cutting them in on the spoils (a.k.a. "issuing them a paycheck") raises their mental barriers against getting it. Insert Upton Sinclair quote here.... "It is difficult to get a man to understand bla bla bla." The minute good people realize they're screwing over other good people, they might actually find it unpalatable to do the work (or buy the product). Either that or they're not such good people. But they don't always have a choice, right? At least that's what good people say who want to absolve good people. Gotta pay the rent, right? Well that's what my landlord says anyway. Gotta keep driving to work to pay the rent, right? Well that's what 80% of Houstonians and 85% of Detroiters say... but 70% of Portlanders agree too. (Everybody's a liberal as long as it doesn't mean getting off your ass.) Maybe people just naturally exploit and screw each other to profit themselves, and all morality is just an idealistic and optimistic overlay. Maybe people in general just aren't that "good." Maybe it'll be better after a bunch of us die the hell off. I need a drink.
  - rhacker 8y ago
    Fuck, I'm buying.
  - badpun 8y ago
    The assumption that people are good in general is a fallacy. When put to test, ex. in Soviet Gulags, vast majority of people would condemn other prisoners to death for a mere chance (not even guaranteed) of slight decrease of their own misery. When the stakes are real, even as small as the convenience of driving, most people put themselves first.
- txcwpalpha 8y ago
  Interesting to see you say that about Texans, as my experience is nearly the complete opposite. Texas is the country's leading wind power state, and is pretty big on solar as well. Among most of the people I interact with daily (friends as well as colleagues), are not people I would consider "pro fossil fuel" at all. And this is coming from people mostly in Dallas/Houston, where oil & gas is much bigger than in Austin. I can even think of a couple friends of mine that actually work for the major oil companies, and even they I would not describe as "pro fossil fuel". One of them drives a Prius. When I was at school at UT, even amongst the buildings and lecture halls that are sponsored and paid for by Chevron/Exxon, I never encountered an anti-renewable sentiment. Hell, McCombs has a masters degree program specifically geared towards exploring renewable energy businesses (as well as several undergrad classes, one of which I took), and I know the engineering school has an entire department for researching renewables. Most of my friends are in their late 20s/early 30s though, so maybe that makes a difference. I could see older folks who grew up when oil was king maybe being opposed to solar/wind. But even then, now that I think about it, one of my friend's grandparents (who are from West Texas) were very thankful for the wind industry and the money it brought to their town (it got brought up because we made a remark about how there seemed to be endless wind turbines in every direction on the drive through W Texas to visit them). I just browsed through a few polls and based on them, it seems you must be really unlucky to encounter so many people unwilling to discuss renewables. According to these polls [1][2][3][4], 80%+ of Texans support renewable/clean energy. I'd be interested to hear more about what types of conversations you try to have and who (age range, industry) you interact with when you find these people. It surprises me that this has been your experience, especially in Austin of all places. 1: https://www.citizen.org/may-11-texas-poll-shows-citizens-want-texas-leaders-increase-renewable-energy-goals https://www.citizen.org/may-11-texas-poll-shows-citizens-wan... 2: https://www.wsj.com/articles/which-state-is-a-big-renewable-energy-pioneer-texas-1472414098 https://www.wsj.com/articles/which-state-is-a-big-renewable-... 3: https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/04/survey-texans-support-statewide-clean-energy-plan/ https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/04/survey-texans-suppor... 4: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/climate/renewable-energy-push-is-strongest-in-the-reddest-states.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/climate/renewable-energy-...
  - rhacker 8y ago
- S_A_P 8y ago
  Houstonite here that works in the energy industry. Im not sure you are talking to the right people. Im not anti fossil fuels, but Im not really "pro" fossil fuels either. If you look at the oil and gas business, there really just isn't any viable alternatives available on a large scale at this moment. I would echo some other comments in that Texas has a lot of solar and wind farms. My father in law has a ranch out in west Texas and every surrounding property has wind or solar generation on it. I am encouraged by this, and while I don't really like looking out at the landscape to see a bunch of windmills, I think it is important to try and reduce our fossil fuel use. The fact of the matter though is that until we give up plastic, and figure out how to store electricity, we need nat gas or nuclear for electricity. Ive read conflicting data about the worlds lithium supply, but it may or may not be able to replace crude for transportation. Electric planes still seem a decade off or more. If crude went away tomorrow, I would still work in the energy industry so I don't care if that were to happen. I can say that I have been encouraged by some of the internal projects some "big oil" companies are taking on. I wish it could be a case of just stop using oil. Life as we know it would cease if we did that.
  - johnwyles 8y ago
    To be fair a lot of West Texas if you're not looking at a bunch of windmills you're looking at about as many derricks - neither are very pleasing to the eye.
    - benj111 8y ago
      I find turbines quite beautiful. A small glimpse of that 1950s future that never came to be. We don't have jet packs, or flying cars, but we have immense white towers, slowly, steadily generating clean electricity. Just as steam engines sum up the industrial revolution, wind turbines sum up the green revolution, that is/I hope will be. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder though. I remember people complaining about 2 massive cooling towers in the centre of Sheffield being torn down. I'd be interested in what wind turbines say to you that lead you to call them ugly.
      - crumpets 8y ago
- johnwyles 8y ago
  Native Texan. Austin and not Austin all my life. Never heard "on balance". Some family in the industry. They know they are seeing the last boom before the bust. I was surprised to hear so few of the wind over there is with any of the big energy companies.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- longhorn_alum 8y ago
  > 1. Texan here. I’m saying this as an Austinite. > 2. I’m anti fossil fuels.... 1. You're not a Texan. 2. By all means, stop using all plastic products, all synthetic fabrics, and stop eating food that you didn't grow yourself. 90% of crop fertilizer is made from natural gas, which creates the miracle of American agricultural productivity. Let us know once you've divested yourself from fossil fuels.
- austin_is_cali 8y ago
  Austin is not Texas. Austin is an plot of land annexed by California.
- austincheney 8y ago
  When ever I drive through west Texas all that sticks out to me are the giant wind turbines. Giant as in a 10-15 story building. When you drive up on a large patch of these turbines you might be able to see thousands at once, and there are possibly hundreds of such fields in west Texas. I am not pro or anti gas, oil, or wind. The primary difference is that wind is linked to the grid. Its not a package available for export. Oil and gas are chemically stable (roughly speaking, non-degrading) liquids that can be transferred anywhere. This makes fossil fuels ideal for export where wind is not, but damn there is a lot of investment in wind energy generation. As an additional matter of perspective I live very close to one of the largest oil refineries in the world, which is really close to one of the largest petroleum export harbors in the world. I am currently living in Kuwait. I really don't see anything here that would classify as a petroleum culture.
  - petre 8y ago
    Most oil companies own wind and PV investments. They're aware that oil is going to run out or get expensive some day and diversify their assets. The enviromentalists are just ignorant and get all worked up.
    - austincheney 8y ago
      I doubt we will ever run out of oil. Yes, there is a specific non-renewable supply of it underground, but there is just so much of it and people are only able to consume it at a measurable declining pace. I bet demand will almost completely fall off long before we get anywhere close to running out.
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        > I doubt we will ever run out of oil. Of course we won't. We will run out of oil that is worth extracting, because the cost to extract the next unit will exceed the value provided. > people are only able to consume it at a measurable declining pace The pace of global oil consumption has been increasing for a long time, other than a brief period of decline in the late 1970s to early 1980s. > I bet demand will almost completely fall off long before we get anywhere close to running out. Over the long term, consumption is going up as are real prices (though the price trend is noisier than consumption.) There's not really consistent with demand declining at all, much ledd heading to the point of completely falling off. Instead, it shows demand increasing faster than supply.
- benj111 8y ago
  >(I know, hypocrite) I'm guessing you added this to avoid inevitable flames. I don't think its hypocritical though. We all live in a world where fossil fuels are dominant. Its reasonable to fight to lower emissions while still emitting yourself (within reason). If you make it so that only the whitest of the white says anything, no one will.
- kakarot 8y ago
  On the other hand, I never had the option for 100% renewable energy before until I moved to Texas, thanks to their highly competitive energy market which was created via legislation. Some parts of Texas are backwards, but some parts of Texas are way ahead of other places.
- j4kp07 8y ago
  > From time to time I have reason to drive through or fly over (I know, hypocrite) West Texas, and passing through the oil fields one can literally watch the world burn. It’s unreal. I suggest you take a flight over to China. https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=cjsdgb406s3np_#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=emissions&fdim_y=emission_type:co2&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=region:-2&idim=country:185&ifdim=region&tstart=-3411568800000&tend=1321941600000&hl=en_US&dl=en_US&ind=false https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=cjsdgb406s3np_#...
ghufran_syed 8y ago
"Residents with no say in these decisions are stuck with the consequences" - I'm pretty sure that these residents get to vote for state assembly people who obviously support the policy, to vote for city council people who support the policy, for US Congress, House and Senate, and for the presidency. Saying that you "don't have a say" when a democratic decision goes against you is pretty misleading - perhaps more accurate to say "some residents, who disagree with the democratically taken decisions at local, state and federal levels..."
- TaylorAlexander 8y ago
  It’s tough. If economic interests dominate the political scene in that region, then the vote of the people may have little effect on the broader situation. We would do well to remember that the idea of a perfect democracy is certainly a huge simplification that we regularly see proven wrong. So it may well be that the voters of that region are not well represented by their “representatives”.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat."
    - sremani 8y ago
      Authoritarianism is a wolf deciding what is good for a group of lambs. As flawed as it is, give me democracy.
      - BurningFrog 8y ago
        This looks like a "False Dilemma" fallacy. A third, preferable alternative is that wolfs and lambs alike get to decide over their own bodies and their own affairs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
        8y ago
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
Environment aside, what's the expected long term impact of lifting oil export restrictions?
- DeonPenny 8y ago
  I've seen a video which made a lot of sense to me, but what I think is happening is the American government is better there will be an oil glut in the future. Not only have more countries found large supplies of oil, but with electric cars quickly become a huge market and tech adoption being high they are betting this will lower oil demand. That's not even mentioning that we are only one valid solid-state battery breakthrough from making large vehicles electric too.
- ars 8y ago
  The restrictions were intended to make sure America was energy independent. Since that goal was accomplished, there isn't really a reason to keep them. Increasing American exports hurts countries that depend on energy exports. America can manage both with and without exports, but other countries can not. The next step in my mind is increasing non-oil American energy and exporting even more oil, this would further destabilize those oil-dependent countries (most of whom are not friends of the US).
  - adventured 8y ago
    Venezuela is one of the first test cases for those consequences. Their system put them down, the US no longer needing/wanting their sour crude will make it far more difficult to get back up. US oil imports from Venezuela were near one million barrels per day as recently as 2012. It's down about 40% from there, and the US now buys around 60% of their total oil output. It has also been hitting Cuba indirectly (as a Venezuela dependent) for some time and now appears to be entering another stage there.[1] By the time Venezuela gets itself back together as a functioning country and could think about rebuilding its output, the world is unlikely to have much demand for its oil. The IEA is expecting their oil production to drop below one million barrels per day soon (from 3.5 million barrels per day in ~1998). Their estimated extractable reserves was always a bit farcical, however even if you chopped that down by 2/3, roughly 100 billion barrels, that still ends up being several trillion dollars in national wealth that will mostly never be realized. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-economy/reality-bites-cuba-plans-more-austerity-as-finances-worsen-idUSKCN1OR0VN https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-economy/reality-bite...
village-idiot 8y ago
Curious what that'll do to West Texas' non-extraction economy. Once a whole nation state depends on extraction, they usually lose other forms of economic activity. This is usually called "Dutch Disease" for historical reasons. But what happens when a small region within a country becomes entirely dependent on resource extraction?
- MandieD 8y ago
  Norway seems to have taken the edge off by taxing fossil fuel use every bit as hard as the rest of Western Europe does and investing a large portion of the profits into a permanent fund for their residents in anticipation of an end to the bonanza, only taking a small percent out per year. “Never get high on your own supply,” as that song about dealing another harmful, addictive substance goes. Unfortunately, West Texas doesn’t have a permanent fund for its residents' current and future oil-industry-driven needs and to even out the boom-bust cycle. Midland and Odessa are cities that only became cities once oil was discovered out there in the 20s. Before, they were little towns. So there wasn’t a ton of economic activity out there before oil - just a railroad interchange, mostly for shipping cattle, I think. I remember seeing a half-built skyscraper in Midland while visiting relatives there in the late 90s, a leftover of the 80s bust that drove the S&L crisis.
- lurquer 8y ago
  There never was a non-extraction economy in West Texas. The place is empty. Some cattle. Fire ants. And the occasional SS retiree living in a mobile home in the middle of nowhere (such as the lady highlighted in the article). Weep over the rainforests. Weep over the wetlands. Heck, you can even weep over the drained swamps. But, spare your tears for West Texas... there is NOTHING you could do to that terrain or ecosystem that wouldn't be an improvement over the wasteland that it now is.
  - p1esk 8y ago
    How about weeping over natural gas flaring equivalent to daily exhaust emitted by about 2.7 million cars?
theothermkn 8y ago
In The Dictator's Handbook, by Bruce bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith, the authors outline why those who live in an extraction economy often do so under what we term dictatorships. Briefly, the supporters that are needed to maintain that extraction economy are a very small subset of the population and, from a government perspective, are not essential. The supporters you end up needing are the portion of the working class needed to run the extraction operation and a police force to keep the rest of the population in check. (Well, and a treasurer and some other bureaucrats, but the application here is to Texas in the U.S., where those services, and an army to defend your territory, are provided by the federal government.) In banana and oil republics, it's actually beneficial for the ruling class if most of the population is weakened and starving, as they are less able to organize. Contrast this with a classical democracy, where the support base is the general population, and the treasury is made possible by the increased productivity of an educated populace who have access to infrastructure that supports their economic activity. In that instance, it is, broadly speaking, the health of the populace that feeds the health of the state. I bring this contrast up at this time for two reasons. First, in the present case of an extraction colony existing inside a U.S. state, we can find a coherent theory of the difference between Republican/Conservative policies, such as states rights, authoritarianism, veneration of the mythology of the (by definition unempowered) individual, and left policies (I leave out Democrats, our centrist party): The former policies are tailored to preserve capital concentrations, favor extractive economic activity, curb controls on pollution, and suppress unions, all with the all-too-easy resort to violence (or it's equivalent, the all-too-common occurrence of looking the other way). The latter policies, from the left, are the opposite, intended to protect the (in fact) powerless and to broaden economic benefit, often through redistribution. Republicanism in this country, allied with business, exists in order to set up and protect banana republics at the state level. Second, we can point to other trends that are worrying in the U.S. For example, infrastructure decay should be seen as a lagging indicator of the economic vitality of a democratic nation; if the benefit of infrastructure accrues indirectly to the ruling class through the productivity of the working classes, then it (infrastructure) will be maintained. After that benefit has gone away (say after manufacturing, technology, and information jobs have moved overseas) the infrastructure can be allowed to decay, as other economic systems arise to extract what's left. Unfortunately, what's left is the remaining savings of the working classes. Think ad revenue for eyeballs, opaque healthcare markets and lack of medical accountability to generate and capitalize on health calamity, cornered apartment markets to extract rent, isolated extraction economies like Dakota shale and the Permian basin, farmland, and so on. No longer relevant to the productivity of a nation, the citizen becomes, at best, a resource; at worst, a burden. Anyhow, for the reasons above, I find the presence of these extractive economies inside the U.S. worrying, more so if they are increasing. The dynamics of power, namely wealth extraction in order to pay supporters, do not bode well if it really has come to this.
thematt 8y ago
This is a complete house of cards, for multiple reasons. It's yet another boom that will result in a lot of hardship for people. First, all the fracking in Texas is fueled by cheap interest rates and private equity. The industry as a whole is losing money -- to the tune of $600 billion since 2007. And when investors (I'm looking at you pension funds) finally realize that there is no path to making these companies profitable, especially when the decline rate on their wells is 70% in the first year, they will stop pouring money in. A lot of companies will vanish when this happens. Second, the media loves to play up the notion of "energy independence" and headlines of the United States producing more than Russia/Saudi Arabia, but neglects to understand the differentials in crude quality. The US (especially Texas) is producing light oil, which increasingly is not wanted in the industry. The refineries in the US have consumed all they can and are increasingly in need of heavier oil to mix with, hence why you see the US exporting our oil and importing oil from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. When exports have been maxed out and foreign buyers slow their purchases these companies will have nowhere to send their oil and will need to slow drilling.
- eloff 8y ago
  I don't think things are quite as bad as you paint it, markets are not irrational and they really are not going to keep investing in a losing enterprise. As for the crude quality, this seems like an ideal synergy with heavy oil sourced from the Alberta tar sands, and yet another good reason for constructing the Kinder-Morgan pipeline to make importing it cheaper and more environmentally friendly. People will probably jump all over me for saying that - but the alternative is not leaving it in the ground, the alternative is Diesel powered trains, which are just riskier, costlier, and worse for the environment. This is one of the few (only?) Obama-era decisions that Trump has rolled back where I actually think he did the right thing.
  - thematt 8y ago
    True, there is a bit of hyperbole in my comments. It's certainly not a sub-prime mortgage type situation. But at the same time people have been pouring money into these companies for 10 years and have seen no free cash flow to speak of. When 70% of the asset you just invested in disappears in the first year, it's a vicious cycle to get out of. That difficulty gets compounded with the service companies like Schlumberger/Halliburton increasing their costs (32% in the last year) and interest rates creeping back up. The Canadian situation is unfortunate. Collectively, it represents so much lost revenue for them. Setting aside the environmental issues and inefficiencies with shipping by rail and truck, companies are having to sell their oil at a steep discount to what they could otherwise be getting.
danschumann 8y ago
I don't own a car. I also think climate change is similar to fighting obesity: "you must change your behavior today or something will kill you in x years" Usually people have a wake up call(cardiac event, can't run up stairs without being winded, etc), before they get really serious about weight loss. What would be a similar wake up call for the planet? People don't attribute floods and stuff to climate change, so therefore it's not a wake up call.
- thucydidesofusa 8y ago
  I'd wager that most people's wake up call would be weather that's more extreme than climate change will likely produce. I imagine climate change to be worrying when plants don't grow around me and that probably will never happen, some just plants will recede into colder ranges and plants from warmer ranges will come in.
  - CuriousSkeptic 8y ago
    If you live in the right place that is. There are countries worrying about completely disappearing (due to raising sea levels) right now.
- alacombe 8y ago
  One could also argue that it's not just a problem of act, but also method. If you do not fit in the "mainstream" way to act, even if you reach the goal, you're gonna provoke the ire of the "righteous" ones. Health wise, if you lose weight going, say, on a full carnivore diet, you're still gonna have specist and environmentalist on your back.
benj111 8y ago
There seems to be a fair amount of cognitive dissonance here. The central complaint almost seems to be that it's getting exported, rather than getting used domestically. And as a non American I'm struggling to understand the lack of environmental opposition. Is the article biased, or does environmentalism not exist in Texas? Finally speaking as someone from the UK. This is scary. Theres been an ongoing battle over fracking, with the first well drilled this year. Hopefully we have better standards in place.
- sschueller 8y ago
  Texas is one of the worst polluters in the entire US. Why anyone would still move there is beyond me. [1] https://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2011/10/mercury-emissions-by-state-image.jpg https://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2011/10/mercury-e... [2] http://scorecard.goodguide.com/env-releases/state.tcl?fips_state_code=48#major_chemical_releases http://scorecard.goodguide.com/env-releases/state.tcl?fips_s...
- syn0byte 8y ago
  Plenty of environmentalists all over the place. plenty of people not happy about it. None you will hear about because who would you hear it from? The 9 o'Clock news?(Brought to you by Ford and Chevron.) Even "grass roots" social media platforms; You subscribe to any local Texas groups on twitter/insta/whatever? Texas is a single state with 4 times the land mass of the entire UK. Do the people Glasgow stop what they are doing, take vacation time and go to protest a new Tesco building over a historical site in London? Likewise people in Houston have little reason and large costs to fight something happening 500 miles away. Nor do they have anything to say about or vote to cast in (almost) any elections that would have (directly) altered policy in the area, which is again, 500 miles(800km) away.
  - benj111 8y ago
    The article doesn't contain the voices I would expect. I'm wondering whether that is an article bias, or just that those voices aren't present. I don't know the ideology of the newspaper, I don't know the local politics. Which is why I asked the question. No offense was intended.

96 points by howard941 8y ago

Texan here. I’m anti fossil fuels, pro solar and wind. I’ve stopped trying to have any conversations with other Texans about this topic. Texans are very pro fossil fuels, on balance. I’m saying this as an Austinite. It’s interesting to see this in the Texas Tribune. From time to time I have reason to drive through or fly over (I know, hypocrite) West Texas, and passing through the oil fields one can literally watch the world burn. It’s unreal. Edit: Just a note on the people in the energy industry. They’re good people on balance. I might have come across as incidentally disparaging people in the energy industry. I have many friends and family of friends that have spent their entire career in the industry. It’s like Silicon Valley and tech’s problems. NYC and the financial crisis. Economic and financial incentives supported by cultural norms. In Silicon Valley the confidence that technology will improve our future means sometimes it is developed without pause for impact. In Texas a strong Christian ethos encourages a certain view of “stewardship” of the earth that does not mesh well with the constantly evolving culture of environmentalism. But as people they’re good people.

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freehunter 8y ago
I never really had a strong opinion on mining until I drove through Wyoming and northern Nevada. I knew it wasn't ecologically friendly, but it wasn't happening near me so I never saw much impact. But after driving through there and seeing entire mountains halfway destroyed as the mining crews work their way through it... in a few more years, that mountain won't even exist anymore. Watching humans take an entire mountain down rock-by-rock is a humbling experience.
- ip26 8y ago
  The worst part is humans only want a small fraction of the mountain, so the whole thing is chewed up and spat out into the land around the mountain. It would be a little better if we actually had a use for the whole mountain. The tar sands come to mind. The entire forest above the sands is literally scraped off the face of the earth, the sands removed, the oil removed from the sands, and then everything aside from the oil is left behind in huge swaths of desolate waste.
  - Danieru 8y ago
    Odd wording to describe a replanted forest as "desolate waste". If anything one may suspect you are not being fully honest to leave out the "then they spent millions to try and return to the forest to its original state."
    - captainperl 8y ago
      > Odd wording to describe a replanted forest as "desolate waste". I know you're trolling, but planting trees doesn't replace an entire ecosystem. Check out a palm oil plantation sometimes for what a desolate forest looks like.
      - Danieru 8y ago
        Ah, so you were aware that the forests are replanted. You choose instead not to provide others with this information or inform that, but rather to editorialize. Now someone has asked you to justify how a replanted green forest is "desolate". Please keep on topic, we are talking about the tar sands not pal oil. Yes I know both have oil in the name but please understand they are not the same oil. Please for your own safety do not drink the tar sands. Now back to your statement. Do you retract your claim of desolation? Or can you provide any evidence to support your position. Please do not reference palm oil in relation to the tar sands. No palm trees grow in Fort Mac.
        deleted 8y ago
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coding123 8y ago
I just drove on the 10 through the area. They literally have these strange chimney columns with flames shooting out. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/energy/fracking-boom-waste-flares-light-prairie-unused-natural-gas-n186946 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/energy/fracking-boom-waste-... The entire area smells like a diesel truck stop.
- patagonia 8y ago
  That is probably “burn off”. Flying over the fields at night one can get a really good idea of the industrial structure and scale involved. A horizontal scaffolding punctuated by these towers lit up at night by the burnoff creates a grid across the landscape that is beautiful and impressive but scary in its implications.
- rory096 8y ago
  WSJ wrote an article about flaring this week: https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-booming-oilfield-natural-gas-can-be-free-11545906601 https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-booming-oilfield-natural-gas... Natural gas is so plentiful that spot prices at the West Texas hub turned negative last month. In general they're trading at about half the Louisiana hub. >One option for Permian operators with too much gas is to light it on fire, a practice known as flaring. Flaring levels reached record highs in the Permian last quarter, when companies burned an average of 407 million cubic feet a day, according to analysis of public data compiled by Rystad Energy, an energy consulting firm. >The resulting greenhouse-gas emissions are equivalent to the daily exhaust emitted by about 2.7 million cars, according to estimates from the World Bank and Environmental Protection Agency. >Texas has thus far allowed companies to flare freely. As of the end of November, state regulators hadn't denied a single permit request in more than five years, records show. But flaring isn’t always an option. Companies might not have the needed equipment set up in areas affected by pipeline outages. They also might have to pay landowners royalty payments for the gas they burn. And flaring gas on the spot means drillers miss out on more valuable products that come out of the ground with it, such as ethane, propane and butane, which are often processed out later.
  - fromthestart 8y ago
nostromo 8y ago
I'm pro-renewables too. But, like you, I'm also a hypocrite because I drive and fly and use plastics. I'm ok with American extraction because I think it's preferable to the two other options I see: 1. keep giving mountains of money to horrific regimes like Saudi Arabia and Russia or 2. halt the global economy until renewables are to scale.
- drjasonharrison 8y ago
  Unfortunately the Texas crude is being exported because the Texas refineries can't refine it. So imports of "blood oil" will continue.
  - remarkEon 8y ago
    What is stopping us from upgrading those refineries so that we can refine it? Is it simply not worth the investment?
    - briandear 8y ago
      We already have been. The OP is simply wrong.
      - shaklee3 8y ago
        I just fact checked, and indeed Texas does refine a whole lot: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_refining_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_refining_in_the_Un...
  - briandear 8y ago
    This is completely incorrect. Many Texas and Louisiana refineries can process West Texas crude. And billions are being invested in expanding that capacity even further. Texas refineries, aside from light crude are primarily equipped to process Canadian and Gulf Coast petroleum, which is the majority of their production, far from “blood oil.” Here’s some background: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Refiners-investing-to-capitalize-on-flood-of-13408890.php https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Ref... Ubtil 2016, it was illegal to export American crude. So the idea that West Texas Intermediate Crude is being exported because refineries can’t handle it is false, unless we are talking about the past two years: in 2014, where did all of that crude go? It was being refined. As the US is a net petroleum exporter, the idea that “blood oil” is a significant part of the American fuel supply is false. Canada exports dramatically more oil to the US than Saudi Arabia. The main reason that West Texas Intermediate trades at a discount wasn’t because of refining capacity, but because of the lack of pipelines to move the stuff.
clairity 8y ago
> In Texas a strong Christian ethos encourages a certain view of “stewardship” of the earth that does not mesh well with the constantly evolving culture of environmentalism. this is the hypocrisy that gets me. christian stewardship should be at the forefront of environmentalism, culture wars be damned, not being dragged along gnawing and gnashing. edit: hypocisy infects all of us, but christian hypocrisy really burns. rather than stiving for betterment while tolerating imperfection, as jesus taught, the general pretense is to cast a blind eye to all kinds of moral failings while acting as if everything is rosy. it's like sitting on a high horse covered in poop.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  The modern evangelical philosophy that seizes the most attention today is often focused on prosperity of the individual. There’s no room for stewardship in any real sense. It’s cash in before it gets shut down.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- humanrebar 8y ago
  If you really want to convince someone of a new position, you should really refrain from attacking their identity and show that you really understand why they make the decisions they do before offering a better alternative. > ...stiving for betterment while tolerating imperfection, as jesus taught... And on a particular point, Jesus never taught that in those words. It might be a fair inference and application, but "how would Jesus vote" is a tricky argument to make. Especially considering that the U.S. has a representative democracy and not a direct democracy. Would Jesus vote for candidate A who favors a carbon tax and opposes ICE? Or candidate B who opposes late term abortion and wants better support for adoptive parents?
  - pjc50 8y ago
    > Would Jesus vote for candidate A who favors a carbon tax and opposes ICE? Or candidate B who opposes late term abortion and wants better support for adoptive parents? Well, that might be the options in the Democrat primary, but what about the Republican positions?
rdiddly 8y ago
The world's burning here too. Thanks to widespread and unusual drought, there are huge wildfires burning all summer long, all over the West. They start well before the usual beginning of "fire season" and continue well past the end of it, into the late autumn. Fire season is now 3/4 of the year. Pretty soon I suppose it'll be all year long. There's a hot wind and choking smoke everywhere. The sun is blacked-out if you're in the immediate vicinity, or else there's a thick smoke haze for miles. It feels like the goddamned apocalypse. It feels like you're in hell. Or rather, hell feels like this. Because those who came up with the concept of hell, based it on this. It was one of their worst experiences of divine retribution. Along with floods and storms etc., and those are coming fast & furious now too. On TV here comes another car commercial. The disconnect is amazing. This shit needs to stop TODAY, if there's to be any hope of stopping or even slowing the catastrophe already in motion. But "good people" are not getting it. Certain other people work overtime to make sure they don't get it. And of course cutting them in on the spoils (a.k.a. "issuing them a paycheck") raises their mental barriers against getting it. Insert Upton Sinclair quote here.... "It is difficult to get a man to understand bla bla bla." The minute good people realize they're screwing over other good people, they might actually find it unpalatable to do the work (or buy the product). Either that or they're not such good people. But they don't always have a choice, right? At least that's what good people say who want to absolve good people. Gotta pay the rent, right? Well that's what my landlord says anyway. Gotta keep driving to work to pay the rent, right? Well that's what 80% of Houstonians and 85% of Detroiters say... but 70% of Portlanders agree too. (Everybody's a liberal as long as it doesn't mean getting off your ass.) Maybe people just naturally exploit and screw each other to profit themselves, and all morality is just an idealistic and optimistic overlay. Maybe people in general just aren't that "good." Maybe it'll be better after a bunch of us die the hell off. I need a drink.
- rhacker 8y ago
  Fuck, I'm buying.
- badpun 8y ago
  The assumption that people are good in general is a fallacy. When put to test, ex. in Soviet Gulags, vast majority of people would condemn other prisoners to death for a mere chance (not even guaranteed) of slight decrease of their own misery. When the stakes are real, even as small as the convenience of driving, most people put themselves first.
txcwpalpha 8y ago
Interesting to see you say that about Texans, as my experience is nearly the complete opposite. Texas is the country's leading wind power state, and is pretty big on solar as well. Among most of the people I interact with daily (friends as well as colleagues), are not people I would consider "pro fossil fuel" at all. And this is coming from people mostly in Dallas/Houston, where oil & gas is much bigger than in Austin. I can even think of a couple friends of mine that actually work for the major oil companies, and even they I would not describe as "pro fossil fuel". One of them drives a Prius. When I was at school at UT, even amongst the buildings and lecture halls that are sponsored and paid for by Chevron/Exxon, I never encountered an anti-renewable sentiment. Hell, McCombs has a masters degree program specifically geared towards exploring renewable energy businesses (as well as several undergrad classes, one of which I took), and I know the engineering school has an entire department for researching renewables. Most of my friends are in their late 20s/early 30s though, so maybe that makes a difference. I could see older folks who grew up when oil was king maybe being opposed to solar/wind. But even then, now that I think about it, one of my friend's grandparents (who are from West Texas) were very thankful for the wind industry and the money it brought to their town (it got brought up because we made a remark about how there seemed to be endless wind turbines in every direction on the drive through W Texas to visit them). I just browsed through a few polls and based on them, it seems you must be really unlucky to encounter so many people unwilling to discuss renewables. According to these polls [1][2][3][4], 80%+ of Texans support renewable/clean energy. I'd be interested to hear more about what types of conversations you try to have and who (age range, industry) you interact with when you find these people. It surprises me that this has been your experience, especially in Austin of all places. 1: https://www.citizen.org/may-11-texas-poll-shows-citizens-want-texas-leaders-increase-renewable-energy-goals https://www.citizen.org/may-11-texas-poll-shows-citizens-wan... 2: https://www.wsj.com/articles/which-state-is-a-big-renewable-energy-pioneer-texas-1472414098 https://www.wsj.com/articles/which-state-is-a-big-renewable-... 3: https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/04/survey-texans-support-statewide-clean-energy-plan/ https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/04/survey-texans-suppor... 4: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/climate/renewable-energy-push-is-strongest-in-the-reddest-states.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/climate/renewable-energy-...
- rhacker 8y ago
S_A_P 8y ago
Houstonite here that works in the energy industry. Im not sure you are talking to the right people. Im not anti fossil fuels, but Im not really "pro" fossil fuels either. If you look at the oil and gas business, there really just isn't any viable alternatives available on a large scale at this moment. I would echo some other comments in that Texas has a lot of solar and wind farms. My father in law has a ranch out in west Texas and every surrounding property has wind or solar generation on it. I am encouraged by this, and while I don't really like looking out at the landscape to see a bunch of windmills, I think it is important to try and reduce our fossil fuel use. The fact of the matter though is that until we give up plastic, and figure out how to store electricity, we need nat gas or nuclear for electricity. Ive read conflicting data about the worlds lithium supply, but it may or may not be able to replace crude for transportation. Electric planes still seem a decade off or more. If crude went away tomorrow, I would still work in the energy industry so I don't care if that were to happen. I can say that I have been encouraged by some of the internal projects some "big oil" companies are taking on. I wish it could be a case of just stop using oil. Life as we know it would cease if we did that.
- johnwyles 8y ago
  To be fair a lot of West Texas if you're not looking at a bunch of windmills you're looking at about as many derricks - neither are very pleasing to the eye.
  - benj111 8y ago
    I find turbines quite beautiful. A small glimpse of that 1950s future that never came to be. We don't have jet packs, or flying cars, but we have immense white towers, slowly, steadily generating clean electricity. Just as steam engines sum up the industrial revolution, wind turbines sum up the green revolution, that is/I hope will be. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder though. I remember people complaining about 2 massive cooling towers in the centre of Sheffield being torn down. I'd be interested in what wind turbines say to you that lead you to call them ugly.
    - crumpets 8y ago
johnwyles 8y ago
Native Texan. Austin and not Austin all my life. Never heard "on balance". Some family in the industry. They know they are seeing the last boom before the bust. I was surprised to hear so few of the wind over there is with any of the big energy companies.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
longhorn_alum 8y ago
> 1. Texan here. I’m saying this as an Austinite. > 2. I’m anti fossil fuels.... 1. You're not a Texan. 2. By all means, stop using all plastic products, all synthetic fabrics, and stop eating food that you didn't grow yourself. 90% of crop fertilizer is made from natural gas, which creates the miracle of American agricultural productivity. Let us know once you've divested yourself from fossil fuels.
austin_is_cali 8y ago
Austin is not Texas. Austin is an plot of land annexed by California.
austincheney 8y ago
When ever I drive through west Texas all that sticks out to me are the giant wind turbines. Giant as in a 10-15 story building. When you drive up on a large patch of these turbines you might be able to see thousands at once, and there are possibly hundreds of such fields in west Texas. I am not pro or anti gas, oil, or wind. The primary difference is that wind is linked to the grid. Its not a package available for export. Oil and gas are chemically stable (roughly speaking, non-degrading) liquids that can be transferred anywhere. This makes fossil fuels ideal for export where wind is not, but damn there is a lot of investment in wind energy generation. As an additional matter of perspective I live very close to one of the largest oil refineries in the world, which is really close to one of the largest petroleum export harbors in the world. I am currently living in Kuwait. I really don't see anything here that would classify as a petroleum culture.
- petre 8y ago
  Most oil companies own wind and PV investments. They're aware that oil is going to run out or get expensive some day and diversify their assets. The enviromentalists are just ignorant and get all worked up.
  - austincheney 8y ago
    I doubt we will ever run out of oil. Yes, there is a specific non-renewable supply of it underground, but there is just so much of it and people are only able to consume it at a measurable declining pace. I bet demand will almost completely fall off long before we get anywhere close to running out.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > I doubt we will ever run out of oil. Of course we won't. We will run out of oil that is worth extracting, because the cost to extract the next unit will exceed the value provided. > people are only able to consume it at a measurable declining pace The pace of global oil consumption has been increasing for a long time, other than a brief period of decline in the late 1970s to early 1980s. > I bet demand will almost completely fall off long before we get anywhere close to running out. Over the long term, consumption is going up as are real prices (though the price trend is noisier than consumption.) There's not really consistent with demand declining at all, much ledd heading to the point of completely falling off. Instead, it shows demand increasing faster than supply.
benj111 8y ago
>(I know, hypocrite) I'm guessing you added this to avoid inevitable flames. I don't think its hypocritical though. We all live in a world where fossil fuels are dominant. Its reasonable to fight to lower emissions while still emitting yourself (within reason). If you make it so that only the whitest of the white says anything, no one will.
kakarot 8y ago
On the other hand, I never had the option for 100% renewable energy before until I moved to Texas, thanks to their highly competitive energy market which was created via legislation. Some parts of Texas are backwards, but some parts of Texas are way ahead of other places.
j4kp07 8y ago
> From time to time I have reason to drive through or fly over (I know, hypocrite) West Texas, and passing through the oil fields one can literally watch the world burn. It’s unreal. I suggest you take a flight over to China. https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=cjsdgb406s3np_#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=emissions&fdim_y=emission_type:co2&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=region:-2&idim=country:185&ifdim=region&tstart=-3411568800000&tend=1321941600000&hl=en_US&dl=en_US&ind=false https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=cjsdgb406s3np_#...

ghufran_syed 8y ago

"Residents with no say in these decisions are stuck with the consequences" - I'm pretty sure that these residents get to vote for state assembly people who obviously support the policy, to vote for city council people who support the policy, for US Congress, House and Senate, and for the presidency. Saying that you "don't have a say" when a democratic decision goes against you is pretty misleading - perhaps more accurate to say "some residents, who disagree with the democratically taken decisions at local, state and federal levels..."

TaylorAlexander 8y ago
It’s tough. If economic interests dominate the political scene in that region, then the vote of the people may have little effect on the broader situation. We would do well to remember that the idea of a perfect democracy is certainly a huge simplification that we regularly see proven wrong. So it may well be that the voters of that region are not well represented by their “representatives”.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat."
  - sremani 8y ago
    Authoritarianism is a wolf deciding what is good for a group of lambs. As flawed as it is, give me democracy.
    - BurningFrog 8y ago
      This looks like a "False Dilemma" fallacy. A third, preferable alternative is that wolfs and lambs alike get to decide over their own bodies and their own affairs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
      - 8y ago

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

Environment aside, what's the expected long term impact of lifting oil export restrictions?

DeonPenny 8y ago
I've seen a video which made a lot of sense to me, but what I think is happening is the American government is better there will be an oil glut in the future. Not only have more countries found large supplies of oil, but with electric cars quickly become a huge market and tech adoption being high they are betting this will lower oil demand. That's not even mentioning that we are only one valid solid-state battery breakthrough from making large vehicles electric too.
ars 8y ago
The restrictions were intended to make sure America was energy independent. Since that goal was accomplished, there isn't really a reason to keep them. Increasing American exports hurts countries that depend on energy exports. America can manage both with and without exports, but other countries can not. The next step in my mind is increasing non-oil American energy and exporting even more oil, this would further destabilize those oil-dependent countries (most of whom are not friends of the US).
- adventured 8y ago
  Venezuela is one of the first test cases for those consequences. Their system put them down, the US no longer needing/wanting their sour crude will make it far more difficult to get back up. US oil imports from Venezuela were near one million barrels per day as recently as 2012. It's down about 40% from there, and the US now buys around 60% of their total oil output. It has also been hitting Cuba indirectly (as a Venezuela dependent) for some time and now appears to be entering another stage there.[1] By the time Venezuela gets itself back together as a functioning country and could think about rebuilding its output, the world is unlikely to have much demand for its oil. The IEA is expecting their oil production to drop below one million barrels per day soon (from 3.5 million barrels per day in ~1998). Their estimated extractable reserves was always a bit farcical, however even if you chopped that down by 2/3, roughly 100 billion barrels, that still ends up being several trillion dollars in national wealth that will mostly never be realized. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-economy/reality-bites-cuba-plans-more-austerity-as-finances-worsen-idUSKCN1OR0VN https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-economy/reality-bite...

village-idiot 8y ago

Curious what that'll do to West Texas' non-extraction economy. Once a whole nation state depends on extraction, they usually lose other forms of economic activity. This is usually called "Dutch Disease" for historical reasons. But what happens when a small region within a country becomes entirely dependent on resource extraction?

MandieD 8y ago
Norway seems to have taken the edge off by taxing fossil fuel use every bit as hard as the rest of Western Europe does and investing a large portion of the profits into a permanent fund for their residents in anticipation of an end to the bonanza, only taking a small percent out per year. “Never get high on your own supply,” as that song about dealing another harmful, addictive substance goes. Unfortunately, West Texas doesn’t have a permanent fund for its residents' current and future oil-industry-driven needs and to even out the boom-bust cycle. Midland and Odessa are cities that only became cities once oil was discovered out there in the 20s. Before, they were little towns. So there wasn’t a ton of economic activity out there before oil - just a railroad interchange, mostly for shipping cattle, I think. I remember seeing a half-built skyscraper in Midland while visiting relatives there in the late 90s, a leftover of the 80s bust that drove the S&L crisis.
lurquer 8y ago
There never was a non-extraction economy in West Texas. The place is empty. Some cattle. Fire ants. And the occasional SS retiree living in a mobile home in the middle of nowhere (such as the lady highlighted in the article). Weep over the rainforests. Weep over the wetlands. Heck, you can even weep over the drained swamps. But, spare your tears for West Texas... there is NOTHING you could do to that terrain or ecosystem that wouldn't be an improvement over the wasteland that it now is.
- p1esk 8y ago
  How about weeping over natural gas flaring equivalent to daily exhaust emitted by about 2.7 million cars?

theothermkn 8y ago

In The Dictator's Handbook, by Bruce bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith, the authors outline why those who live in an extraction economy often do so under what we term dictatorships. Briefly, the supporters that are needed to maintain that extraction economy are a very small subset of the population and, from a government perspective, are not essential. The supporters you end up needing are the portion of the working class needed to run the extraction operation and a police force to keep the rest of the population in check. (Well, and a treasurer and some other bureaucrats, but the application here is to Texas in the U.S., where those services, and an army to defend your territory, are provided by the federal government.) In banana and oil republics, it's actually beneficial for the ruling class if most of the population is weakened and starving, as they are less able to organize. Contrast this with a classical democracy, where the support base is the general population, and the treasury is made possible by the increased productivity of an educated populace who have access to infrastructure that supports their economic activity. In that instance, it is, broadly speaking, the health of the populace that feeds the health of the state. I bring this contrast up at this time for two reasons. First, in the present case of an extraction colony existing inside a U.S. state, we can find a coherent theory of the difference between Republican/Conservative policies, such as states rights, authoritarianism, veneration of the mythology of the (by definition unempowered) individual, and left policies (I leave out Democrats, our centrist party): The former policies are tailored to preserve capital concentrations, favor extractive economic activity, curb controls on pollution, and suppress unions, all with the all-too-easy resort to violence (or it's equivalent, the all-too-common occurrence of looking the other way). The latter policies, from the left, are the opposite, intended to protect the (in fact) powerless and to broaden economic benefit, often through redistribution. Republicanism in this country, allied with business, exists in order to set up and protect banana republics at the state level. Second, we can point to other trends that are worrying in the U.S. For example, infrastructure decay should be seen as a lagging indicator of the economic vitality of a democratic nation; if the benefit of infrastructure accrues indirectly to the ruling class through the productivity of the working classes, then it (infrastructure) will be maintained. After that benefit has gone away (say after manufacturing, technology, and information jobs have moved overseas) the infrastructure can be allowed to decay, as other economic systems arise to extract what's left. Unfortunately, what's left is the remaining savings of the working classes. Think ad revenue for eyeballs, opaque healthcare markets and lack of medical accountability to generate and capitalize on health calamity, cornered apartment markets to extract rent, isolated extraction economies like Dakota shale and the Permian basin, farmland, and so on. No longer relevant to the productivity of a nation, the citizen becomes, at best, a resource; at worst, a burden. Anyhow, for the reasons above, I find the presence of these extractive economies inside the U.S. worrying, more so if they are increasing. The dynamics of power, namely wealth extraction in order to pay supporters, do not bode well if it really has come to this.

thematt 8y ago

This is a complete house of cards, for multiple reasons. It's yet another boom that will result in a lot of hardship for people. First, all the fracking in Texas is fueled by cheap interest rates and private equity. The industry as a whole is losing money -- to the tune of $600 billion since 2007. And when investors (I'm looking at you pension funds) finally realize that there is no path to making these companies profitable, especially when the decline rate on their wells is 70% in the first year, they will stop pouring money in. A lot of companies will vanish when this happens. Second, the media loves to play up the notion of "energy independence" and headlines of the United States producing more than Russia/Saudi Arabia, but neglects to understand the differentials in crude quality. The US (especially Texas) is producing light oil, which increasingly is not wanted in the industry. The refineries in the US have consumed all they can and are increasingly in need of heavier oil to mix with, hence why you see the US exporting our oil and importing oil from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. When exports have been maxed out and foreign buyers slow their purchases these companies will have nowhere to send their oil and will need to slow drilling.

eloff 8y ago
I don't think things are quite as bad as you paint it, markets are not irrational and they really are not going to keep investing in a losing enterprise. As for the crude quality, this seems like an ideal synergy with heavy oil sourced from the Alberta tar sands, and yet another good reason for constructing the Kinder-Morgan pipeline to make importing it cheaper and more environmentally friendly. People will probably jump all over me for saying that - but the alternative is not leaving it in the ground, the alternative is Diesel powered trains, which are just riskier, costlier, and worse for the environment. This is one of the few (only?) Obama-era decisions that Trump has rolled back where I actually think he did the right thing.
- thematt 8y ago
  True, there is a bit of hyperbole in my comments. It's certainly not a sub-prime mortgage type situation. But at the same time people have been pouring money into these companies for 10 years and have seen no free cash flow to speak of. When 70% of the asset you just invested in disappears in the first year, it's a vicious cycle to get out of. That difficulty gets compounded with the service companies like Schlumberger/Halliburton increasing their costs (32% in the last year) and interest rates creeping back up. The Canadian situation is unfortunate. Collectively, it represents so much lost revenue for them. Setting aside the environmental issues and inefficiencies with shipping by rail and truck, companies are having to sell their oil at a steep discount to what they could otherwise be getting.

danschumann 8y ago

I don't own a car. I also think climate change is similar to fighting obesity: "you must change your behavior today or something will kill you in x years" Usually people have a wake up call(cardiac event, can't run up stairs without being winded, etc), before they get really serious about weight loss. What would be a similar wake up call for the planet? People don't attribute floods and stuff to climate change, so therefore it's not a wake up call.

thucydidesofusa 8y ago
I'd wager that most people's wake up call would be weather that's more extreme than climate change will likely produce. I imagine climate change to be worrying when plants don't grow around me and that probably will never happen, some just plants will recede into colder ranges and plants from warmer ranges will come in.
- CuriousSkeptic 8y ago
  If you live in the right place that is. There are countries worrying about completely disappearing (due to raising sea levels) right now.
alacombe 8y ago
One could also argue that it's not just a problem of act, but also method. If you do not fit in the "mainstream" way to act, even if you reach the goal, you're gonna provoke the ire of the "righteous" ones. Health wise, if you lose weight going, say, on a full carnivore diet, you're still gonna have specist and environmentalist on your back.

benj111 8y ago

There seems to be a fair amount of cognitive dissonance here. The central complaint almost seems to be that it's getting exported, rather than getting used domestically. And as a non American I'm struggling to understand the lack of environmental opposition. Is the article biased, or does environmentalism not exist in Texas? Finally speaking as someone from the UK. This is scary. Theres been an ongoing battle over fracking, with the first well drilled this year. Hopefully we have better standards in place.

sschueller 8y ago
Texas is one of the worst polluters in the entire US. Why anyone would still move there is beyond me. [1] https://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2011/10/mercury-emissions-by-state-image.jpg https://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2011/10/mercury-e... [2] http://scorecard.goodguide.com/env-releases/state.tcl?fips_state_code=48#major_chemical_releases http://scorecard.goodguide.com/env-releases/state.tcl?fips_s...
syn0byte 8y ago
Plenty of environmentalists all over the place. plenty of people not happy about it. None you will hear about because who would you hear it from? The 9 o'Clock news?(Brought to you by Ford and Chevron.) Even "grass roots" social media platforms; You subscribe to any local Texas groups on twitter/insta/whatever? Texas is a single state with 4 times the land mass of the entire UK. Do the people Glasgow stop what they are doing, take vacation time and go to protest a new Tesco building over a historical site in London? Likewise people in Houston have little reason and large costs to fight something happening 500 miles away. Nor do they have anything to say about or vote to cast in (almost) any elections that would have (directly) altered policy in the area, which is again, 500 miles(800km) away.
- benj111 8y ago
  The article doesn't contain the voices I would expect. I'm wondering whether that is an article bias, or just that those voices aren't present. I don't know the ideology of the newspaper, I don't know the local politics. Which is why I asked the question. No offense was intended.