Your latest callout of Democraps and Greens as well as Rethugs for backing Prop 4

This study from the Texas Water Journal says that on-site detailed inspection at sites in Texas shows:

[P]ermitting of surface discharges of produced water must be carefully regulated, and the downstream water quality containing signature produced water constituents must be continuously monitored.

Boom. I don't normally bold pull quotes, but this one needed it.

Continuously monitored? Yeah, sure, the Railroad Commission that can't even keep track of abandoned oil wells will do that, right? Or the Texas Water Development Board, in the middle of development? 

Here's the full abstract of the piece; the sentence bolded above is the last.

West of the 98th meridian, sufficiently treated produced water from oilfields can be legally discharged into surface water for beneficial reuse. However, its long-term impacts on the water quality of downstream waterways are poorly understood. 

In this study, we investigated the water quality evolution for segments of the receiving streams in the Nueces River watershed, namely the Lower Atascosa River and the Petronila Creek. The former site is associated with the permitted discharges from an active oil extraction operation, while the latter site represents a “legacy” site that is known to have been contaminated despite oil and gas operations being terminated in 1987. 

We analyzed datasets, including the historical water quality data from selected upstream and downstream locations relative to the discharge outfalls, to characterize the temporal and spatial trends of the key water quality parameters, including chloride and total dissolved solids. We also conducted correlation analyses between upstream and downstream water quality to describe the spatial relationship of the constituent concentrations and their association with hydrologic dilution effects. 

At both sites, the concentrations of key constituents were consistently and significantly higher than the upstream counterparts. Correlation analyses suggested the influence of additional downstream processes or inputs rather than simple longitudinal transport. Precipitation influences solute concentrations episodically, whereas the dominant drivers appear to reflect longer-term changes in solute inputs rather than hydrologic variability alone. 

While the causality of the worsening downstream water quality must be interpreted cautiously, the analyses showed a strong influence of external inputs impacting the water quality of these receiving streams. As such, permitting of surface discharges of produced water must be carefully regulated, and the downstream water quality containing signature produced water constituents must be continuously monitored.

There you are. 

This shit is why I called out the Texas Green Party's executive committee for backing Prop. 4. Texas Democrats are mainly urban and pretty clueless about agriculture in West Texas, even more, west of the 100th meridian than the 98th. I mean, even the Sierra Club, which ALSO SUPPORTED Prop. 4, admitted that the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas allows fracking wastewater, aka produced water, projects and that Prop 4 tax money would go to that. It's why I am officially no longer a Green at the state level as well as the federal.

For the unknowing, the 98th meridian is a bit west of Fort Worth and Austin, but east of San Antonio.  

Corpus Christi kills pricey, bloated desal plant

At least for now, it does.

It wouldn't surprise me if, as claimed, it's true that Strangeabbott threatened to cut all funds to the city if it backed out of the plant.

Council member Carolyn Vaughn, co-owner of an oilfield service company and a desalination critic, told the meeting that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s chief of staff, Robert Black, called her on Friday and said the state would cut all funding to Corpus Christi if it didn’t proceed with the plant. 

“No one has the right to use their influence to intimidate a City Council member,” she said. “We must choose options that are more affordable.” 

Abbott’s office did not immediately respond to a query sent early Wednesday morning.

The plant mushroomed in size, to triple its original operating capacity, and eightfold or more on cost. 

Who's it for? Not really or ultimately for residents, but for oil frackers, refiners etc.

And, if Corpus does move to recycling wastewater? If it's good enough to drink, it's more than good enough for the Koch Bros. 

West Texas continues to be ever-more contaminated

Can "produced water" contaminate aquifers? If so, what are the liabilities of oil companies? If they're real and serious, is the state requiring them (ditto in places like New Mexico) to set aside adequate funds in advance? Is this just an issue with old wells, and lower standards for injection of their leftover produced water, or is it just as much an issue today? The Trib investigates the issue (other than state funding reserve requirements, or lack thereof [it IS a problem in the Land of Disenchantment]) here in Tex-ass. Here's a good pullout:

“This is the worst I’ve ever seen. I’ve been in 102 countries. I have never seen anything like this. And there is nothing in my mind that can fix it,” ... said Hawk Dunlap, an international oil field firefighter ... a fourth-generation oil worker and sixth-generation Texan. “You go around the world telling everybody how great Texas is, then come home and see this. It’s rather embarrassing.”

There you go.

This to fair degree pits two classes of stereotypical Texans against each other: farm and ranch owners vs Big Oil (and not-so-big in many cases, itself a problem).

And, so far, we know whose pocket the Railroad Commissioners are in, and by their inactivity on the issue, whose pocket the Lege is in as well.

Harvey Yates, sinking his oily hands into New Mexico

I didn't realize that Yates, scion of THE Yates oil and gas plutocrats, had bought Española's Rio Grande Sun earlier this year. (Of course, it had been a semi-laughingstock itself long ago, goosing its circ by selling in Santa Fe and Duke City so that the big city folks could get their jollies laughing at the drug crimes in one of the Land of Dis-Enchantment's armpits.

That's part of the discussion in this New Mexico Searchlight piece about Yates widening the spread of his oily talons across the state.

His ultimate goal, per the piece, seems to be a drive into browbeating the Valencia County Commission into changing various zoning laws so he can drill — and frack — in the Albuquerque Basin.

As for his claims that NM Media is dominated by Gannett? Laughable. Hobbs is owned by a small scale company, or was. The Albuquerque Journal's Number Nine Media dominates print media in the Albuquerque Basin, including the Valencia County Bulletin in Belen, and No. 9 is semi-wingnut. Carlsbad and Cruces are Gannett, tis true. Duke City teevee? KOB is a smaller chain. KOAT is Hearst. KRQE is Nextstar. Farmington's paper is Gannett, but I"m unaware of it ever saying a bad word about either fracking or flaring.

It's also laughable, is his implication that Gannett, now Craphouse of course, is run by a bunch of wild-eyed bomb-throwers. However, I'm sure he hates even the slightest mention of climate change on its news pages. It's also laughable to read about his circumlocutions about fracking. He probably also hates to see the slightest mention of fracking, injection well earthquakes, etc. in any of those papers. Of course, that's assuming there's anybody left at those papers. It's a bit richly hypocritical for the Fanta Se paper folks to report on the details of Gannett's hollowing out in New Mexico, but here you go. (That said, it is the Capital City's alt-weekly, not the New Mexican.) Gannett doesn't even have a local reporter at its Ruidoso or Alamogordo papers.

The Texas Roundup says: Give me your ladders

There's lots of stuff to consider this week, between strictly Texas news and national and even global items hitting directly upon the Pointy Abandoned Object State™, including fracking, Biden and the border, and other fun stuff, so, let's dig in.

Texas

Ill Eagles are defeating border wall sections built by Trump (and by Dear Leader and Shrub Bush before him) with $5 ladders. Sadly, Status Quo Joe, rather than doing everything he can to cancel more wall-building, as shown by his detention issues, is probably going to do some difference-splitting along with Trump-blaming. (See below under the National subheader about Biden's continuing to use Trump's Title 42 declaration for arbitrary turn-backs at the border.)

A radioactive waste site out west of Andrews is struggling to safely store radioactive oil and gas waste from elsewhere, including Australia. Yes, Australia. But, don't worry; Lloyd Bentsen himself made sure that (the law says) this waste is nontoxic. That's even as the Society of Petroleum Engineers admits the truth. The Railroad Commish alleges it inspects Lotus, but, really? The RRC claims it "inspects" all sorts of stuff.

Frackers are still looking for "bigger fools" to buy them out.

New House and Senate vote bills specifically target urban counties over 1 million. Gee, wonder why. Kuff has more.

 

Permitless carry may still not get through the Senate, at least not in the House's version, says the Trib.

Per that piece, but the Trib has no link to a story of its own, I don't know how I missed it, but Jeebus Shot Sid Miller is suing Lite Gov Danny Goeb over COVID restrictions under the Pink Dome. Getcher popcorn, especially since "Doctor" Steve Hotze is behind the suit and Jared Woodfill is the barratry specialist of record. I guess a COVID shot ain't a Jesus shot? What's more interesting yet is that Patrick actually has apparently abandoned his "duty to die," even though he's over 70 himself; the restrictions are ONLY on the Senate side of the Capitol, but Patrick has essentially done a cross-dome callout to House Speaker Dade Phelan to tell him to get his shit together. That said, the Trib link of the previous graf DOES note that the Sidster has dropped hints about running for higher office in 2022. That leaves just Abbott or Patrick; Pee Bush's office would be a lateral move, and the idea of Sid challenging Glenn Hegar for Comptroller is mind-boggling.

Off the Kuff derides that ridiculous Abbott/McConaughey poll, which could have told us something about 2022 but failed to do so.

Will Derek Chauvin's conviction up north push forward the George Floyd Act?

Dan Solomon does another one of his fellation jobs at Texas Monthly, this one over HornsSawnOff QB Sam Ehlinger and "The Eyes of Texas," with Solomon pretending to ask a question about that.

Will the Lege officially block Strangeabbott from taking away regular state funds any time the feds offer new COVID-related money earmarked for schools? R.G. Ratcliffe looks at that and other budget issues.

Never Trumper Michael Wood hopes to make the runoff in the CD6 special election. Ain't gonna happen, but nice honest try.

Grits for Breakfast reminds us that under current Texas law, a police officer has to be fired twice before they can have their law enforcement license revoked. 

The 19th profiles Houston City Council member Abbie Kamin, the first person to serve on the Houston City Council while pregnant.

John Hryhorchuk explains what's holding up federal stimulus money for Texas public schools. 

Jef Rouner gives a legislative marijuana bill update.

The Texas Civil Rights Project documents some of the ways that the two big voter suppression bills would harm voters.

Zenen Jaimes Perez and Stephanie Gómez show why restricting voting hours makes it extremely difficult for some people to be able to vote.

Amber Briggle had to file a police report for the harassment she's received since testifying against the various anti-trans bills in the Lege.

National

For Earth Day, SocraticGadfly talked about the ecosocialist Earth Day to May Day framing by the Green Party of what a real Green New Deal entails.

Richard Trumka was elected many moons ago on the promise of a new AFL-CIO. Then why is he continuing to hassle the new new AFL-CIO at its Vermont chapter?

 

Gavin Newsom will face a recall, but unlike Grey Davis, he'll almost certainly win — in part because today's California GOP has nobody like an Arnold to lead a non-nutbar, socially somewhat libertarian, conservative opposition. 

Pro Publica, which has previously busted international tree purchasing climate change offsets as largely fake, especially in the tropics, does the same with California.

Ashli Babbitt's family is as much Babbitt grifters / Dum Fuqs as she was if they think they can win a $10 million lawsuit against the Capitol Police. (It will be great to see if white wingnuts lose this in part by being hoist on the sovereign immunity petard.) Family lawyer Terry Roberts will also have a fun time trying to prove what constitutional rights of a person committing multiple felonies at the time she was shot were being violated.

Biden continues to hate on Ill Eagles. And much of BlueMAGA continues to make themselves deliberately unaware, or else defend him in the face of knowing this. The BorderLines newsletter has more about some of the problems this causes when migrants from further south than Mexico are simply shoved back across the Mexican border.

Abandoned oil wells: A growing hazard in NM AND TX

Both New Mexico AND Texas suck at inspecting abandoned oil wells in the Permian. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has done some modest improvements to that into the Land Different, but not a lot. (Lujan Grisham has gotten the state tax code tweaked and other things beyond Gov. Martinez, but on environmental justice, she's still relatively slow See "Richardson, Bill." Better yet: See Gov. Lujan Grisham accept state oil and gas industry award.)

And, we know in the Texas side of the Permian, and presumably in NM, that they're leaking methane. And, possibly, toxins like toluene and benzene. (Beyond these two stories: In both states, and other petroleum-gas heavy states in general, state regulatory agencies' required deposits on wells are a pittance.)

And, many, many more may be abandoned in coming years, as the truth of short-peak, quick-death fracked wells hits home.

Beyond the health hazards of the methane, and even more, the other substances, is the climate change alteration by the methane, much more potent than carbon dioxide over shorter scales of a century or less. On the economic side, this ultimately becomes money out of state taxpayer pockets that can't be used for other things. And, given that state governments won't do any more than a minimalist job, it becomes a blight on communities. It also becomes a recreational blight on federal land, in places where the BLM may not hold feet to the fire much more than state governments.

Meanwhile, NM Environment Department's stripper well loophole for methane further confirms MLG is not a friend of the environment. As New Mexico has cabinet-style government, not the quasi-plural executive of Texas, MLG could fire NMED Secretary James Kenney or do whatever else she deemed necessary to close this loophole.

Fricking frackers shooting themselves in the foot again

In the oil patch, TWO factors happened this year: COVID and OPEC+.

Although the latter's actions, of Saudi Arabia and Russia losing trust in each other, and both wanting to bury American frackers, of "opening the spigots," did technically happen after the start of coronavirus in China was driving oil prices a bit lower, it was largely independent of that.

And, although they partially pulled back, and partially in response to a Trump request, those days are over, too.

So are the days that hinted that American drillers, especially frackers, would learn from this. (Have they ever in the past?)

Oil production has started inching up again in Texas.

Even as WTI prices fell back below $40/bbl.

Are the two correlated? Most likely.

The increased production is probably not the only thing driving the price slip, or maybe, to put it another way, it by itself has not caused the degree of the price slip. But, it's a factor.

Wayne "God loves free markets and Andrews Texas" Christian, head of the Railroad Commission, dissed going back to its 1930s production control roots this summer, saying North Dakota and others wouldn't play along.

Left unspoken? Christian not asking for federal, nationwide production controls. Now, that said, between the PPP and elsewhere, lots of oil people both big and small got government prop-up money. But, once again, the lack of a national energy policy was the bottom line. The Federal Energy DE-Regulatory Commission continues to to just that.

Meanwhile, as readers of this blog, DeSmog Blog and elsewhere know, frackers have a lot of money on the books to Wall Street banks, a lot of it coming due within nine months or so. So, they're looking for any angle possible. 

What they really should be looking for is a bigger sucker to buy them out.

Of course, since they're getting We the People to pay for their abandoned well clean-up, they're probably hoping for more PPP-like help from suckers of both duopoly parties in DC. That DeSmog Blog link refers to their loans on the books, and self-bonding on well cleanup, among other things.

Specific to fracking, it notes that more wells, deeper wells, and shorter-lived wells (any regular reader here knows that I've written before about how part of the reality behind the fracking hype is a short-term production spike that then quickly declines again) means more orphan wells.

Also per that link, the real problem isn't suckers in DC claiming to represent We the People. It's suckers (or willing sellouts) like Wayne Christian in Austin, and counterparts in places like Denver and Santa Fe. If frackers can dump old wells on state agencies, they will. Period.

Remember that when your neighbor bitches about cleanup after abandoned wind turbines. Especially if they have a gas lease.

"Poor me" in the oil patch: stop me if you've heard this

Texas Monthly has a long read about the details of the latest oil bust and why this one's going to be bad.

Yeah, it may be, but I've heard this stuff before.

First, I'm old enough to remember $10/bbl oil just before the turn of the century, and how that lasted a long time.

And, adjusted for inflation, per the chart below, WTI was below $40/bbl for SEVEN YEARS, setting aside that brief blip just above the $40 mark in 1995.

Crude Oil Prices - 70 Year Historical Chart

So, let's stop this nonsense, Texas Monthly. Surely somebody on your editorial staff is old enough to know better.

What's changed is that the fracking revolution led MANY companies like Pioneer Energy to be formed, or if on the books as small companies, to greedily expand. Hey, Scott Sheffield, Pioneer Energy CEO and Texas Monthly's fracking whisperer? Nobody forced you to make yourself into the Aubrey McClendon of the oil patch, including, just like him, Ponzi-scheming yourself on leases that you have to drill or lose.

Indeed, a year ago, DeSmog Blog caught Scott Sheffield in either huge self-delusion or else huge fibbing when he claimed fracking was profitable at $30/bbl.

You're right that there is no such thing as a free market, not just in the oil patch but elsewhere. BUT ... until Railroad Commission chairman and nutbar-in-chief Wayne Christian refused to bail you out with proration, I don't recall you saying that the lack of a free market was a problem.

As for the whys of Wayno fighting proration? I'll take him at his word, discounted the 50 percent he normally should be. North Dakota, New Mexico and other states that have also had fracking-related oil booms may have found it difficult to adopt proration in their states. They may also, to the degree their state budgets have become more oil-dependent than Texas', decided they didn't want to, or didn't think they could afford to, prorate. In any case, whether or not Wayno tried that hard, he couldn't get a proration deal. And, within the US, the oil production world has changed since 1970.

In addition, Texas Monthly should be asking how big of a polluter whining Pioneer is. Hell, even the New York Times can ask that of frackers in general, along with other questions.

Yes, Texas is still the biggie. But states 2-10, combined, produce as much oil as it does. Just five years ago, though, New Mexico was way lower, and Colorado and Oklahoma a fair amount lower. Seven years ago, North Dakota was way lower.

Long long ago? In the 1980s, in a situation like this, per graph at this site, Texas only had to worry about Alaska. In the 1990s and 2000-oughts, then offshore production was an issue. And, though it's declined again, especially after the Deepwater Horizon, offshore drilling has two other issues. One, it's federally controlled, so Wayno has no control over it, nor do 49 other states. Second, offshore wells? You won't shut them down, period.

LONG long ago? The misty mythic 1930s? Contra Sheffield, and contra the Texas Monthly reporter who didn't call him out on it, everybody who knows anything about Texas crude knows that the RRC largely failed to control production then. People pumped and sold hot oil and laughed at the state. It took the feds and force to accomplish anything.

If this DOES change everything? It won't be by itself. Per Sheffield, it will be the rise of cars, plus, we hope to doorknob, real climate change legislation that includes a carbon tax and carbon tariff at the federal level, plus, we hope to doorknob, states and third parties winning lawsuits against Big Oil.

Earth Day 50, Part 2: Peak Oil was true

I have blogged off and on about Peak Oil for a decade or so.

I was an active commenter on places like the old Oil Drum. Remember folks like Jerome á Paris and others.

Sadly, it eventually folded up.

That was in part over the Bakken find in North Dakota, followed by the Eagle Ford in Texas. After it folded, the new round of fracking in the Permian came along and many people said it had finally, totally disproven King Hubbert.

Had it?

Hubbert's whole idea was based on the rational exploration for new oil with new technology when old, conventional oil became too pricey for a variety of factors.

None of that actually happened.

We know now that a lot of the fracking, especially a WHOLE LOT of the fracking in the newest developments in the Permian, was underwater from the start, and drillers chased more wells for the same reason Aubrey McClendon did with Chesapeake. He was facing a giant Ponzi scheme. And, unable to avoid it longer, he committed suicide, cursorily investigated, and his wife got his life insurance.

Well, it's true that we have well exceeded our 1970 peak. On paper.



But, if I whack off 25 percent of today's production, a reasonable guess as to what percentage is underwater, and following Hubbert's sanity-based (always a short commodity in the awl bidness) reasoning, we haven't.

Now, it's true that there may have been the occasional well in the past that was not profitable. But, once the government started regulating prices, starting here in Tex-ass with the Railroad Commission really moving into oil (shipped on rail cars in the 1930s) over the "hot oil" fights, that's not been true until now.

So, no, if you're counting profitable oil, versus unprofitable oil that shouldn't be getting pumped right now, we haven't proven Peak Oil wrong.

And we won't in the future.

The Permian wells that have been cannibalizing each other? I suspect forced closures is going to affect some subterranean pressure issues. Reopening them on condition of refracking them in 2-3 years will just be more expensive.

Permian drillers, and the lying banks subsidizing them, have, to take a coronavirus idea that applies perfectly because of the steep production curve of a fracked well, have ramped up the curve of production, versus climate change, rather than flattening it and nudging the world more toward energy alternatives.

Texas Progressives, Part 2: the rest of the story

For the second time in a month, this corner of the Texas Progressives decided to split the weekly Roundup into two parts.

I wanted to keep coronavirus postings separate from everything else. And so, they're in part 1.

With that, let's jump into the rest of what's happening.


Texas politics

David Bruce Collins reports from precinct-level Green Party conventioning in Houston that Dario Hunter was the presidential favorite. Now in California, eh? Is he carpetbagging? Dunno why he left the Rust Belt. And ... if they were using approval voting, as it sounds? Since DBC says Hunter had 10 approvals of 11 voters? Yes, that is near unanimous. That said, Howie Hawkins' 7 of 11 is a two-thirds.

DBC is still planning to run as the Green nominee for Senate. Thank doorknob I won't have to undervote in a race that would otherwise feature John Cornyn against either one-time Libertarian gun nut MJ Hegar or grifting Legiscritter Royce West.

Texas Observer interviews elections expert Richard Hasen about his new book and how it relates to recent Texas voting problems.

Stephen Young picks the worst candidates to emerge from primaries.

Off the Kuff welcomes our lady judge overlords. (Overladies?)


Texana

Texas is one of the states most at risk of more rural hospital closures.


Oil, etc

The Texas economy is probably fixing to implode, with the oil slump part of it likely to be at least as bad as 2014, if not coming halfway close to the end of the Great Recession in 2009-10. And, once again, the lack of an every-year Lege in the Banana Republic of Texas will exacerbate the problem.

Helltown (as usual) ain't ready for the latest oil bust. That said, Evan Mintz's piece still is in part an attempt to put a lipstick on a pig. He notes oil prices fell nearly by half in 2014. Problem? That was from over $110/bbl to $70. There was room to cut, painful as it was, at that price. There's no room to cut in the $30s. Meanwhile, scratch the surface, and the city looks more dysfunctional than Big D. Some oil companies are still halfway whistling in the dark. Others are going radio silent. And an alleged energy expert at the U wants an oil tariff, ignoring both that that's probably illegal under WTO rules, and that the light-ass half-condensate coming out of the the Permian needs to be mixed with heavier grades for best refining. (Hirs would let in other North American oil, which would surely violate WTO rules. Mexico probably doesn't have enough heavier-grade oil, and Canada's tar sands are a loss leader at $60, let alone $35.) If Annise Parker is right that Houston WILL pass Chicago in population, it likely will be a helluva dysfunctional place, maybe even more so than the Windy City itself.

Meanwhile, Harris County and Houston city government's  possible overreaction on coronavirus is sure to finish pushing the city into recession.


Dallas

In one of his best takedown pieces in a long time, Jim Schutze kicks ass on Our Man Downtown, John Wiley Price, for his ultimate role in primary voting problems in Dallas County.

Developers are pocketing city money in TIFs that is supposed to be used to build affordable housing.


National

Socratic Gadfly saw the story about Hobby Lobby's supposed Dead Sea Scrolls being confirmed as fakes, and recognized a name from the past. He talks about his personal academic connection to this story.

The Gadfly offers one thought on the Dem Debate, via Twitter:

This. I thought this back in 2016 as well. The lack of a killer instinct in debates or whatever is a Bernie Sanders problem. https://t.co/wbTCNP1pAi

— American Exceptionalism, meet coronavirus 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) March 16, 2020

That's part of why Bernie lost 2016's nomination, conspiracy theories about the DNC aside, and it's part of why he'll likely lose again this year.

Well, no, I'll add one other thing. Our Revolution may not technically be a super PAC, per the letter of one Sanders response in the debate. But, it formed a PAC, and whether that's a "super PAC" or not, it takes dark money. Sanders Institute? Let me know if it's moved beyond being a hotbed of nepotism.

Brains said something stupid and so I didn't link to him. (Hey, Brains, if you drop by? Kuff is on my blogroll in part as a rectal irritant to you.)

World

Bibi is out in Israel, or so it seems.

Texas Progressives Roundup, part 2 of 2: Uber nuttery, other Texana and the best of the rest

Can't get to spring training?

Can't get some place to heckle the #CheatingAstros?

If you're under 18 and a baseball lover or a baseball team hater, please check with your parents before taking certain modes of transportation.

And, with that, we move beyond the Texas politics nuttery of this week's roundup, so busting at the seams we split it in half. Part 1, about Texas politics in the last week before primary election day, is here.


Texana

A Mount Pleasant mom is suing Uber for one of its drivers giving her under-18 and unaccompanied kid a ride to Atlanta to run the bases at the Barves stadium. No, really. Against Uber rules for sure, and possibly criminal? Also in bad taste. Go to Busch and run the Cardinals bases. Or go to Florida and bean Dusty Baker.

Sulphur dioxide in parts of east and central Texas has fallen 25 percent after the closure of three older, especially dirty, coal-fired power plants. Martin Creek still needs to be closed, and yes, per the Observer, increases in other pollution still need to be tackled.

Per new information from DeSmog Blog about "Peak Permian," many newly fracked wells are producing what's closer to condensate than traditional oil.


National

Congrats offered by Gadfly to four Green Party activists who have (for now) beaten the rap on their Venezuelan Embassy occupation trial. He also notes that, per the judge in the case, this is why he rejects Democrats' "Oh, the SCOTUS" call every four years.

Related? Justice Sotomayor accuses the current majority of pro-Trump bias on immigration. If only the four in the minority (and Tony the Swinging Pony Kennedy before he left) were more vigourous on issues besides reproductive choice and sexual relations freedom, and now, immigration.

Two consolidated "faithless elector" cases, consolidated, go to the Supremes April 28. I see this as a slam-dunk constitutionally; neither state political parties nor state laws can "bind" presidential electors. Period. National popular vote initiatives that are adopted on a reciprocal basis are likewise unenforceable.

In anticipation of Sanders' then-expected, now-finalized win in the Nevada caucuses, Brains analyzed the Dem Debate there.

Speaking of, Sanders pretty much knocked out of the park when interviewed by Anderson Cooper.

With Yang dropping out and Tulsi Gabbard pushing the Basic Income theme, SocraticGadfly again looked at libertarian vs progressive versions of BI and then dove into discussions about just how we should define the "gig economy" and who — within looser definitions of that group and perhaps outside tighter definitions — might benefit from different versions of BI.


Cultural

A Gabriel Garcia Marquez exhibit is running in Austin.

A new documentary, Trans Pecos, looks at the beauty of the greater Big Bend area and its threats from oil fracking.

Texas Progressives talk New Hampshire turkey

So, our first-in-the-(white)-nation primary is now in the bag, after our  first-in-the-(white)-nation caucuses. (Actually, per Dems using a mosque for at least one caucus site, Iowa is not quite so white any more and is less white than the Granite State.) Sanders has a win, but Mayo Pete remains nipping at his heels and Klobberin Klobuchar was a surprise in a strong third. My take here.

Before the roundup, a note to ponder: Why do white folk who generally hate black folk obsess so much about tanning, that is, moving from white closer to black? Melatonin envy, to riff on Freud? Maybe, per Mel Brooks in Blazing Saddles, there's some unknown schwartzes in Trump's German ancestry background. Or a black woman among the ladies of the evening his granddad was pimping in the Klondike.

OK, NOW we can continue.


Texas politics

Off the Kuff analyzed the Q4 2019 campaign finance reports for Texas Democratic Congressional candidates.

Dos Centavos presented his Stace Slate for the primary. Per Brains, how you square supporting Bernie for prez and ConservaDem grifter Royce West for Senate, I dunno. (Alonzo is not the best Dem for RRC, either.)

Sanford Nowlin reviews the state of election integrity.

The Texas Signal ponders the rise of Michael Bloomberg and his Presidential campaign in the state.

Texana, pollution division

Beef: It's what's for dinner, it's what's for causing climate change, and now, with the consolidation of the meat packing industry and bigger feedlots, it's what's for fucking up your lungs in Amarillo. And, of course the TCEQ isn't doing anything. And the Texas Department of Ag? Besides Sid Miller fucking up hemp regs, it's doing less than nothing on this issue. Result? Panhandle counties have higher asthma rates than most of urban Texas. And the Texas Cattle Feeders Association bigfoots people who would speak out.

Petrochemical refineries in various spots on the Gulf Coast continue to break federal emissions regs on benzene. Reminder 1: Benzene is carcinogenic. Reminder 2: It's a byproduct of cigarette smoke.

Kinder Morgan's Hill Country-transecting pipeline nears completion. Rich Rethuglicans in the Hill Country who are mad get the schadenfreude sad trombones from me. Others there get actual sympathy IF they're not GOP blank-checkers.

That said, it may have less and less to pipe in the future, and that future may be coming sooner than it would like. Read that link for the latest on fracking cannibalizing itself.


Texana

Hair discrimination is a thing, sadly.

Selena is remembered in pix in San Antonio.

The TSTA Blog notes that public school principals don't have private jets.

Better Texas Blog connects income inequality with the decline in union membership.

Dallas

Surprised that Stephen Young didn't ask if Our Man Downtown JWP has an alternative, friends of John Wiley Price, concessionaire in mind for Dallas County Jail inmate phone calls, and that that's what's behind the delay in a new contract.

Young more than redeems himself by bank-shotting from Trump's comment about Mitt Romney to put Robert Jeffress in the spotlight.

Reverchon Park neighbors are suing the city over the council's sweetheart development deal to a group led by Donnie Nelson. D Mag has all the details.

Tiny houses get their own community within Lake Dallas.


National

Brains saluted Bernie's New Hampshire debate performance while also calling James Carville nucking futs. I pointed out details of Carville's lies on Twitter:

It's time for spot the bullshit from James Carville. https://t.co/6UGCT9QFYz
.@JamesCarville?
1. Bernie's a Dem https://t.co/nfhXgUw7Zc
2. It's a FUCKING LIE Russia was fronting Stein .@DrJillStein please sue Carville!
3. The Dem party is the party of #neoliberal bazillionaires.

— Why didn't Pelosi use the Emoluments Clause? 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) February 7, 2020

More here and here in Tweets by others, reTweets of others, or a response thread, on the vapidness of Carville.

Before that, Brains offered a 2020 elections update, noting that Yang is burning lots o money. Sidebars in his piece note falling oil prices and possible effect on Texas and more.

SocraticGadfly looked at the recently ended impeachment process and talked about why it failed politically.

Sports

SocraticGadfly had a trio of Metroplex and Houston related pro sports roundup posts. First, in the wake of the Chiefs winning the Super Bowl plus tweeting during the AFC title game, he asked if it was sad trombones time for DFW and Houston pro sports. Second, he said Rick Carlisle was getting it wrong by trying to make Unicorn Porzingis into a 3-ball machine. Third, as unconventional as Daryl Morey's plans may be, he said the Rockets were among the winners at the NBA trade deadline.

Gadfly also, per ESPN, saluted Rock Chalk Jayhawk head coach Bill Self for his 700th win, the second-youngest college hoops coach to ever do that, and the team for its record-tying 31st straight 20-win season.

Peak Permian is still likely to be here sooner rather than later

Per DeSmog Blog (and others I have noted in the past, like Ari Berman), we may well be getting closer and closer to a new peak of production in the Permian Basin, despite all the breathless gushing by American wingnuts about energy independence — along with less than the most critical reporting on this issue by Texas' largest newspaper.

Horizontally-drilled fracking wells dropped in tight clusters have a tendency to cannibalize each other's oil. DeSmog Blog itself wrote about this 18 months ago. Per that DeSmog Blog link, I have also blogged about this issue six months before that second link, and looked beyond just the Permian.

As for 2020 being a possible peak? In my blog post, one of the links, in February 2018, said the peak, and for all big fields, not just the Permian, might come in just four years from then. That would be the start of 2022, a year later than DeSmog Blog, but certainly in the same neighborhood. It's also of importance in that it covers all the major fields, not just the Permian, which means ... Peak Oil, period, if you will.

DeSmog Blog also looks at the fiscal side of what's behind all the drilling, as I have done before, too. Basically, oil frackers are largely in the middle of a Ponzi scheme no different than that of Aubrey McClendon of Chesapeake with natural gas a decade ago — which still hasn't fully dissipated either. It's not so confined to one company, which is both good and bad. It means we won't have one major player go kablooey, but it means its even more widespread, if not so sharply deep. That said, gas fracking Ponziness wasn't totally just McClendon, either.

 I have blogged and tweeted before about how half of the "boom" of modern fracked wells is faster well flow and only half is increased overall production. If not Toyota, which hasn't improved overall fuel economy in a decade, Honda and others are lying in wait for SUV-addicted American car companies to hit another crunch.


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Per another, newer piece by DeSmog Blog, maybe Peak Permian is ALREADY here. "Oil" from new fracking is looking more and more gassy. No, really; much of it is just about light enough to qualify for what the Railroad Commission considers condensate. Also contra Trump and others on "energy independence," this ultralight stuff HAS TO be blended with heavier grades from elsewhere — as in, imported — for the best refining.

DeSmog Blog notes other thing yours truly has said for some time — fracking produces somewhat more oil, but even more, it produces the oil it does at a much faster flow rate, making it look like a big boom just before the big bust.

And this is not just the Permian — it's fracking. That same piece notes that wells in the Bakken decline just as fast, and decline faster yet in the Eagle Ford.

For that matter, per a recent blog post, per why and how King Hubbert calculated it, Peak Oil itself was actually true. 

==

Update, March 14: And now, coronavirus plus the collapse of OPEC+ are further cratering prices.

TX Progressives tackle political, possible editorial oiliness

The Texas Progressive Alliance looks at oiliness polluting the political, and perhaps editorial, landscape and other issues.

Brains and Eggs offers up highlights July campaign finance reports from key the Texas connection on the DNC reverse shift to take Big Oil donations.

DeSmog Blog discusses in detail how  the fracking industry is cannibalizing itself and causing environmental damage. This blogger suggests that Chronicle biz columnist Chris Tomlinson needs to start reading stuff like this, and more, before writing his next “fracking is great, period” column. (Hints have been dropped before.)

Downwinders at risk keeps beating the drums  for Metroplex air quality.

At the Dallas Observer, Jim Schutze gives resigned-in-disgrace former Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway a final kick in the pants, in part for supporting white folk much more than his own South Dallas constitutency.

David Bruce Collins sees faint hopes among today’s Dems but doesn’t expect realization for a generation or more.

The San Antonio Current says millennials are registering to vote.

SocraticGadfly wants to know more about all the alleged Texas atheists the Lyceum poll on the Cruz-O'Rourke Senate race said the state had.

Off the Kuff highlights July campaign finance reports from key State Senate and State House races.

Gaby Diaz documents her time knocking on doors for the Beto O'Rourke campaign.

Texas Standard says Valley schools are doing well.

But The Texas Tribune notes post-Harvey troubles in Port Arthur ISD schools.

David Brockman calls out the Christian right's politics of cruelty.

Free Press Houston wonders if that city will face a far-right rally.

Mark Smith stands up for public libraries

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The Rivard Report is moving to new digs. Will it hire new staff?

Irene Vázquez maps out where Houston is affordable.

El Jefe recaps the Jeff Sessions/El Tiempo debacle.

Dian Nostikasari explains why Houston's bike plan matters.

#ClimateChangeIsReal so get ready to sweat, Texas

Two months ago, the Dallas Morning News ran a story that had some climate scientists predicting Dallas and environs could have 120-degree summer days by 2050.

In other words, take Phoenix now. Add Dallas' summer humidity, which is closer to that of Houston than that of Phoenix. That's Dallas in 25 years, while many readers of the Snooze are still alive.

Alarmist? I don't think so. I'm no James Howard Kunstler, but I am more worried than the the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as more worried than Michael Mann and many US climate scientists.

A non-climate scientist who is more worried is an emeritus engineering prof from Cornell, Anthony Ingraffea.

He does know something about fracking, and he expects that will push the world over that 2°C doorstep within 15 years, per DeSmog Blog. That's less than the 25 years for Dallas to become a sweatier version of today's Phoenix.

Specifically, he knows about methane leaked from fracking for both natural gas (methane) and oil.

People who know much at all about climate change know that methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, even if relatively shorter-lived. Over a 100-year period, per the pre-Trump EPA, it's about 30 times more potent. And, governments try to make methane look even that benign by using a 100-year period rather than 20 years, per Scientific American.

And, speaking of leaks, per Wikipedia, let's not forget that HC-134a filling modern air conditioners.

So, no, 120-degree days in Dallas is not an alarmist prediction at all. It's also why I say that people tut-tutting about Trump exiting the Paris climate accord are tut-tutting about something toothless, while they are something clueless.

No, shale oil has not refudiated #PeakOil

First, oil is a finite resource, contra a few Russian abiogenesis nutters. Therefore, even with perfect production techniques, we would hit a peak in production.

Second, don't believe the hype about shale oil.

Yes, we look to catch up to the US 1970 peak in production this year. We may pass it.

And it probably won't last that long.

For people who overhype the long-term prospects for shale oil (including, perhaps, some staff at the Houston Chronicle), this piece explains fully what I've said before. Shale wells look good because they have a high initial production — that drops off FAR more rapidly than older "conventional" wells. 

The piece notes that the Bakken and Eagle Ford may well already be past peak, and that the Energy Information Agency may well be overtouting the Wolfcamp formation in the Permian. (What, the EIA overtout something? I'm shocked there's gambling in this room.)

The OilPrice piece also notes that modern fracking, when oil tapers off away from an area's sweet spot, may partially parallel multiple holes in the past. Go read the whole thing.

In other words, it's kind of like running electricity through 220 volt lines rather than 110, while only having 20 percent more amperage, not 100 percent.

Or, for a better analogy, from natural gas, here in Texas? As one commenter on that site notes, nobody talks about the Barnett Shale any more. The Marcellus is cheaper, richer and the Barnett has seen its best drilling already.

And, (linked at the piece), read the Post Carbon Institute's take on the EIA's rosy assumptions in general. Here's a good extract from early on:

More aggressive technology, coupled with longer horizontal laterals, allows each well to drain more reservoir area, but reduces the number of drilling locations and therefore does not necessarily increase the total recovery from a play—it just allows the resource to be recovered more quickly at lower cost from fewer wells. 

Exactly. I've known that for years.

And visit the home site behind all this.

Is this more correct than the EIA's fluffing? Well, a previous Post Carbon Institute report a few years ago forced EIA to reduce its original fluffing on projected reserves in California's Monterey Shale by 96 percent.

David Hughes, the author of the Post Carbon piece above, was the person who also exposed the reality about Monterey:

Over the past decade, Hughes has researched, published and lectured widely on global energy and sustainability issues in North America and internationally. His work with Post Carbon Institute includes ... Drilling California (2013), which critically examined the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) estimates of technically recoverable tight oil in the Monterey Shale, which the EIA claimed constituted two-thirds of U.S. tight oil (the EIA subsequently wrote down its resource estimate for the Monterey by 96%); and Drilling Deeper (2014), which challenged the U.S. Department of Energy’s expectation of long-term domestic oil and natural gas abundance with an in-depth assessment of all drilling and production data from the major shale plays through mid-2014. 

Yeah, it's more correct than the EIA and the EIA has admitted that.

So, don't believe the latest BS, and don't believe journalists who don't push back against EIA data.

It's possible that, at least in the Permian, fracking may peak in just 4 years.

Bakken dropoff shows reality of #fracking

Those of us who used to visit places like The Oil Drum have long known the reality of fracking for oil.

Yes, it does increase total well production somewhat. But what it really does is increase flowrate from a well, making it look like one's hit a liquid gold mine.

Then, reality hits.

With the Bakken, it's hitting hard. Wells there have less total oil production, a higher gas-oil ratio, and a higher water cut. One of the three alone would be not good.  All three together are very not good.

There's a lot more about that, in detail, at that link.

The United States is NOT about to become a new Saudi Arabia of oil and the idea of Peak Oil has not been refuted. That's even with the "Permania" about the Permian Basin that Daniel Yergin cited earlier this week at CERA Week.

Speaking of, part of why Prince Salman wants to create an IPO for Saudi Aramco is surely to build even more solar panels, as is starting to happen.

The Saudis have oil supply 100 percent backward

As various general news media and oil-watch outlets heat up over Saudi Arabia's attempt to get an oil production freeze from OPEC members and, it hopes, from Russia as well, looking back in hindsight, maybe Ali Al-Naimi should have gone back to old Saudi ways rather than venture into a brave new production world from which his successor, current Saudi oil minister Khalid al-Falih, is trying to pick up the pieces.

That said, it wasn't all his fault. His predecessor, Ali al-Naimi, recently noted that, in late 2014, as an oil oversupply already loomed, fellow OPEC members refused to tighten the taps. Al-Naimi started the decision to keep oil flowing without taking all the hits on cuts itself, and even pumping more.

Al-Naimi led the Saudi oil desk for 20 years, and in previous world, or OPEC, gluts, as the biggest producer, and for his whole time, the so called "swing producer" for the world, would tighten its own taps only. But, largely to smack down US shale oil, he said no.

I think he got it totally wrong.

He should not just have done previous Saudi-style cutting, but even more.

One of the elements of American shale oil is that its success is somewhat a will-o'-the-wisp and certainly short term. Yes, fracking shale formations will produce more oil than conventional drilling, and in tight formations will produce oil where it couldn't be gotten with a conventional process.

However, it doesn't produce that much more oil in wider shale formations, let alone in fracking to improve on non-shale drilling. It does produce some more, but not an incredible amount.

Rather, part of its dazzling effect is simply to increase the flow rate of oil in production. That's it.

If the Saudis had been smart, they would have whacked their production twice as much as in the past, let the price hit $100/bbl, and let many of America's newly-fracked oil wells pump themselves halfway dry in half a dozen years, if that long.

KSA then swoops in to pick up the pieces.

That's IF a "little" new shale oil find in the Permian doesn't totally upset oil production applecarts.

Ken Salazar and Hillary Clinton's #fail on #climatechange, #fracking, #DeepwaterHorizon

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton announced earlier this week that, if she were elected, former Colorado senator Ken Salazar, President Obama's first Secretary of the Interior, would serve as leader of her transition team.

That would be the Kenny Boy Salazar:
• Who lied about issues related to the Deepwater Horizon blowout;
• Who was a non-transparent part of the (not) "most transparent administration in history;
• Who "cheerled" for federal coal sales;
• Who lied about what the Endangered Species Act covers;
• Who threatened to sue, as a private individual, to block ESA enforcement;
• Who refused to clean house at Interior; and
• Whose brother was once in bed with the Koch Bros.

So, anti-frackers are right to complain, but Salazar's anti-environmentalism runs a lot deeper than anti-fracking.

Well, for all the Democrats, and the David Brock machine, who smear Jill Stein as being anti-science, along with a Green deserter like Dan Arel for a far more minuscule Socialist party in a fractured Socialist landscape who does the same, this proves who is really anti-science.

I've long said the Paris accord of this spring, with zero enforcement mechanisms, is aspirational bullshit. This just underscores that.

Democrats don't truly take climate change seriously, and Hillary Clinton is going in reverse.

RIP to Ponzi scheme grifter Aubrey McClendon (updated)

Aubrey McClendon

A day after being indicted by the feds for on oil and gas lease fraud, Chesapeake Energy founder and former CEO Aubrey McClendon is dead in a horrific one-vehicle accident that certainly looks like suicide by vehicle.

(Update 1, March 15: More proof on that end comes from OKC police. Per USA Today, he was traveling as high as 89mph, and after light brake-tapping, hit the embankment wall at 78mph, after suddenly veering left.

Update 2, June 7: In a narrowly circumscribed report, OKC police say now they can find no proof he intended to commit suicide. Yes, and absence of evidence isn't the same as evidence of absence.

Per the first update, the "barely tapping" on brakes looks suspicious, like a man trying to put a veneer over a suicide that would still let family inherit life insurance, pension, etc. See the lower part of the original piece, in the bullet points, for more on this.)

The indictment involved Chesapeake and an unnamed (for now?) company B allegedly involved in bid-rigging for federal oil and gas leases. That said, one of my newspaper peregrinations had me in the southwest corner of the Dallas side of the Metroplex, at the edge of the Barnett Shale. I've covered meetings of Chesapeake folks with local city councils. And blogged about its denialism on fracking earthquakes.

And, yeah, that fish rotted from the head down. He carried his Ponzi scheming (it was, as documented years ago) over to American Energy Partners. In light of this, I even wrote a Beverly Hillbillies spoof about Chesapeake.

As for the Ponzi scheme label?

No, he wasn't ripping off outsiders. But, it's related to what got him indicted. Both at Cheseapeake and AEP, he was essentially chasing new leases and new gas to pay for old after the success of fracking kneecapped him, kind of like Aaron Kutcher and newspapers at the Orange County Register. So, not Ponzi scheme in its conventional sense, perhaps, but I'll stand by use of the phrase. The fact that he had taken a personal stake in Chesapeake wells, then used that as a mix of loans collateral plus payment to himself for the cost of well-drilling, per the NYT, is an even more conventional Ponzi scheme.

EE News, in a long piece, has more about how he bubbled himself, then Ponzi-schemed his own company, then all of us (since We the People are the owners of federal lands).

So, I'll call him a Ponzi schemer. And laugh at his protestation of innocence, in hindsight. As Forbes notes, he didn't deny anything; he just boo-hooed about being singled out.

McClendon's totaled 2013 Tahoe.

First, a sidebar. This isn't the first case of suicide by vehicle that I've heard about. The first was in the city of my first media job, about a year after I moved. In that case, the person drove off an uncompleted ramp for a bridge for a new highway routing. Small town, construction had been going on; not likely to have been an accident, and there were arguably reasons for his decision. So, I have a bit of background in professionally understanding such things.

So, such things happen. And, the latest update on the accident makes clear that he intended to hit the embankment.

Why on this?

First, the mechanics of it possibly being suicide by vehicle?

• One-vehicle accident
• Very high rate of speed
• Head-on collision with a very immovable object, a bridge abutment.

Second, the why?

• He's under indictment, and thus avoids testifying. 
• Because of that, the feds will find it harder to claw back money from his family than from him, since he never goes to trial.
• And, because suicide by vehicle is hard to prove as suicide, family gets life insurance money, etc. And, given that he was still being paid by Chesapeake and still even covered by a Chesapeake life insurance policy, as well as any personal life insurance, etc., yes, his wife stands to get a bunch of money.

So, per lawyers?

"Goes to motive, your honor."

And, as follow up, on the legal angle:

• Will the feds indict anybody else?
• Will we learn the identity of "company B"?
• If anybody is convicted, for manipulating oil and gas bids, will they get more than the 21 months of Tim DeChristopher?

And, will Gang Green enviros become any more repentant of their embrace of the gas business? That's as Russell Gold, though not as in-the-tank as in his 1-starred book, writes a largely laudatory paean which surprised me not one bit when I saw the name. The fact that Gold says the Department of Justice is about to dismiss the indictment without mentioning that's because you can't put dead people on trial, as if he's insinuating DOJ overreached, says enough.