Forty Two Million Gallon a Day

Today, in the San Jose Mercury News, that devotes an entire section to car commuting, there was an article decrying state laws that attempt to reduce C02 content in gasoline.  The article claimed that the science to make a meaningful reduction in C02 in gasoline simply does not exist today.

This means C02 levels in gasoline cannot really be dropped any more, no matter what legislation tries to do.

In the article, it was mentioned that every day Californians use 42 million gallons of gasoline!  That does not include diesel, jet fuel; etc.

Meanwhile, in the Record Searchlight, our right wing press, writes  about the Monterrey Shale deposits, that allegedly contain billions of gallons of oil.  Of course this is oil shale, which means fracking will be necessary to get it  at great cost and danger.

But never fear, pumping millions of gallons of water, laced with cancer causing chemicals, under the artichoke fields of Salinas is totally safe!

And, the deposits sit close to the numerous earthquake faults that criss-cross California.

The writer does make passing mention of the farm land that could be ruined, but doesn't mention the earthquake faults.

There is overwhelming  evidence that fracking has set off earthquakes.  But what is a small shaker in Pennsylvania right?  A 3.0 is no big deal.  California has the same earthquake risk as back east right?  Right?

Wrong, but "what me worry"!

Each family owns what, three point something vehicles?  The average daily commute is 45 miles one way.  We steadfastly denounce trains, buses, and all public transportation.

In  Redding  we are bound and determined to sprawl out even further, foolishly building yet another shopping center north of town, which will make for longer drives, and more than likely will destroy the downtown area; which right now sprawls out ten square miles or so.

The editor of our local paper, did mention that we "need to get started sometime" to conserve and to use clean energy.  But that sometime is way off in the future, now that what  looks like an endless supply of oil and natural gas is available.

Bullshit!  That is right, bullshit.  Fracking is extremely dangerous to the environment, especially in agricultural zones.  Just watch "Gasland".  It would take just one movement of the San Andreas Fault, and that 42 million gallons of gasoline a day won't be needed as much for a long time.

Fracking oil shale is very expensive and has  not yet proven to yield usable quantities of petroleum.  It has worked for natural gas, a different item completely, with unknown long term consequences.  

Moreover, peak oil, still is a valid predictor of total oil reserves.  The deposits of oil shale have been well known for years.  Don't be fooled by the oil companies claiming that these are new discoveries.  Peak oil predictions knew about the "vast oil shale reserves".  They also have known about how expensive and risky it is to extract.      

It is the usable oil yield from the oil shale reserves that is not known.  That is because much of the oil shale yields a crude oil that has molecular deposits of minerals that no refining process known to date can eliminate.  In short, you might be able to frack it out at great cost, but it is useless.  And, in many cases, the carbon content of the shale oil is extraordinarily high, yielding even more C02 when it is burned, which is again unsustainable.  And, fracking is enormously expensive, needs vast amounts of water, and uses chemicals that are quite simply poisonous.  

Look, the era of cheap energy (except for wind and solar) is over, done, finished.  While we celebrate foolishly the "discovery" of oil shale we ignore that gas prices are going up, and up, and up.  The clever ruse of the oil companies has worked! 

The key, here, is the 42 million gallons of gas.  The key  is with this" boom", has anyone noticed the price of gasoline going down?

The oil companies have known about these deposits for fifty years or so.  They did not have the technology to get at them before,  because it was TOO EXPENSIVE.  

Get it, TOO EXPENSIVE to extract.  And too dangerous!  So now, conveniently, the oil tycoons are betting that Americans, to feed their 42 millions gallons a day habit (in California only), will pay higher and higher prices, at higher and higher risks to the environment,  adding to climate change; that could  kill us all in the end.

And, even with shale oil, the demand still  is far exceeding the supply,  when you figure in overseas gasoline  use as China and India join the American mindless automobile commuter culture.

Oil companies do not care!  That's right, hey don't care one bit how much they gamble with our children's future.  They are selling a lie to us, that fracking is our salvation, and what stands in the way of prosperity are, guess who, those mean old environmentalists and progressives who smell a rat.

There is a way out of this trap.

The key here is we must conserve, we must NOW begin changing  our transportation habits,  both freight and passenger, back to the rails.  We must tax multiple car ownership and yes, tax ourselves out of our cars to a certain extent.  Using 42 million gallons of gas a day is simply unsustainable.  If we, as consumers, cut that use, and pay for better public transportation, the oil companies will lose (for once).  Oil companies, in spite of their warm and fuzzy ads, are NOT YOUR FRIENDS!

Oh, I almost forgot, it was over 100 degrees in parts of Texas today, March 18!  We had the warmest year in   human history last year, and expect more of the same.  And yet,  the editor of our local right wing paper, declares that we must frack our way to prosperity, driving C02 levels even higher, using up petroleum even faster, and driving right over the cliff.

Forty two million gallons a day!