Spit balling

Where to begin...

I moved in with my girlfriend Lacey, and her son, and her mother.  It's a small place, but the price is right and it fits me for right now, especially because I'm not sure of the future of my career.   Also I love that woman and I want to be around her.

With Santa Barbara's  pipeline rupture a year ago the offshore platforms cannot produce any oil.  Santa Barbara can't get any royalty revenue, the state can't get any tax revenue and all the people that work out there, and those that help those that work out there, and those that help those that help those that work there are all out of work.  A huge vibrant, beating revenue source that normally pumps income into the local economy is just not beating.  It has a lot of local implications, but personally it means I won't be working there for much longer.  I'll be offered a transfer to somewhere else.  At that moment I will need to decide about my future, my happiness, whats best for me, and for Lacey and a bunch of other stuff I didn't expect to decide on RIGHT NOW.

I really like working out there.  I enjoy most of my coworkers most of the time, I enjoy the mechanical nature of the work I do, and its interesting to be part of an industry like that.  It's changed my paradigm for sure, and I have learned so much, which is one of my favorite things to do.  A lot of it I can't talk about, or I'm not supposed to, so I won't.  But during the off time it's cool to see whales and dolphins and other sea creatures on a regular basis.  It's cool to see the sun rise and sun set everyday.  It's cool to see helicopters land and yachts cruise by.  And it felt good when I knew we were producing and making jobs and feeding the local economy and the industry.  There is a sense of pride there, and it's often overshadowed by outsiders views of what we do.  Most people have no idea what goes on out there.  No idea whats involved with getting oil from the ground to gasoline at the pump for their car.  No idea the cost of keeping the oil flowing, in time, in dollars, in injuries, in lives.

Something I have been thinking about is our own energy independence as a nation and how hydraulic fracturing fits into that.  I know fracking is a hot button issue for people and their minds are usually made up, but all I can do is look at the data and the studies, which show the overwhelming majority of fracking operations are safe, as determined by decades of research and study by the USGS and the EPA among others.  The times that it hasn't been safe it was from deliberate violation of existing laws and regulations, or negligence and those that do that should be punished to the furthest extent of the law.  There's a right way to do things, there's a safe way, and it is possible.  And even if it wasn't, what is the alternative?  America needs energy to fuel every other industry that requires electricity.  If we don't get it here--where the laws and regulations are most strict--we need to get it from somewhere else, like Saudi Arabia and the middle east, and Africa, etc.   They don't have the kinds of laws and regulations we do here.  All things being equal it would be best for the environment if we acquired oil here, where we can control it.

I guess that is my first point.  If america manages to shut down all oil and gas operations we would still need oil and gas, and need it badly.  Where would be a good place?  Because shutting down our oil and gas operations here will not effect the rest of the world, which will now make even more money, hand over fist at our expense.  Not to mention the revenue loss, and the job loss and etc.  I think, in talking to people about this, there is a breakdown of the scale and time frame required for renewable energy.

For the last 100+ years our nation has built an infrastructure to allow the use of oil and gas and coal as our premiere energy source.   That will not be undone in a year or ten.  The numbers are huge, and current levels of renewable energy manufacturing are so small that it would take a long time to replace coal.  Be real about this.  It is going to take a transition wherein you replace one with another.

I think the best way to do it is to replace the coal power plants with natural gas ones.  The reduction in emissions would be incredible.  There is no contest between those two as to which is better for the environment.  America sits on one of the worlds largest natural gas reserves (after the Hydraulic fracturing technology changed a useless layer of geology into the 4th largest gas reserve on the planet, which is why fracking will never go away) it would make sense to utilize it for our own benefit.

Once we switch coal for gas not only will our greenhouse gas emissions reduce to an unprecedented level, but our electricity will become even cheaper.  This is the important part, because when electricity cost is low innovation and production and the economy all improve.  A lot of big projects suddenly become feasible with cheap electricity.  That's a no brainer--like maglev trains and electric roads and electric public transportation and etc.

What I hear most from an opposing view point is we should skip natural gas and go straight to renewables to replace coal.  Maybe you're thinking about that now.  Chew on this: renewables require manufacturing  (a ton of manufacturing would be required to replace coal alone), which requires electricity, the majority of which is "dirty," in this scenario.  So it would be more expensive to manufacture these renewables, due to a lack of cheap electricity, which would reduce the amount manufactured and increase the amount of time to replace coal, and the coal plants would be belching out pollution for a longer period of time.  I think that in the long run it would be worse for the environment.

It is interesting to note that while our production as a nation has risen demonstrably (largest producer of gas in the world) our emissions have decreased to a level that only existed in the 70's.  Our production has gone up, our demand for power has gone up, our consumption has gone up, and our emissions have gone down.  It's getting better.  Making the switch to natural gas for electricity is the prudent and expedient option.

I'm just spitballing here.   And I think that is enough for today.

Lifeless planet

So it's been a while and a lot has changed in my life and maybe I will write about it,  but not right now.

 I've got a lot of ideas kicking around my head and the freshest one is from a video game called Lifeless Planet. Where you're an astronaut on a team sent to colonize a lush green world on a one way trip.  But when you get there the green world is gone, replaced by a deserty Mars wasteland looking stuff.  But you find a Coloney there that's dilapidated and humans have already colonized it. That idea--as I know it --comes from Russian scifi space novels about exploring space.  And when the cosmonaughts  finally get to some new planet and find that  it's already been inhabited and abandoned by humans long ago.  There are other exploration vehicles too.  The  implication being that earth is nothing special just another colony, and  humans are all over the multiverse and some unknown group of humans already explored the planet the Russians went to check out.

 I've been letting that idea percolate in my brain for some time.  I'm going to continue to let it stew and delve deeper into this.