Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Two quick links that have nothing to do with each other
Because we are nothing if not fair, we note that federal investigators have cleared Michael "The hockey stick" Mann of scientific misconduct, finding "no evidence" to support the allegation.
This morning, CNBC's Jim Cramer is coming to us from the Bakken formation in North Dakota, the center of an almost unbelievable "gold rush" type boom on account of its potentially massive oil reserves. But North Dakota is not the only huge discovery right here in the United States:
TomCo Energy is a London-based company which owns leases on over 3000 acres of oil shale land in Utah’s Uintah Basin. As I have noted several times (most recently just last week), the Uinta Basin is the site of the massive Eocene Green River Shale formation – potentially the largest reservoir of unconventional petroleum in the world. With total reserves estimated at up to 1.3 trillion barrels, and ultimately recoverable reserves of 800 billion barrels or more, this formation holds three times or more the amount of Saudi Arabia’s proven reserves. Unlocking this formation would change the energy outlook of the nation – and of the world – for a century or more.
Glenn Reynolds notes that the enemies of progress will do what they can to stop this:
Expect environmentalists to fight this tooth-and-claw since changing the energy outlook of the nation (for the better, at least) is anathema to them.
OK, more than two links.
3 Comments:
By 
, at
Wed Aug 24, 11:09:00 AM:
So often I read commentators asking plaintively, "What's to be done? We can't reduce federal spending lest it create more drag on the economy, and the Fed itself has used every creative tool they can to increaser the money supply!"
Well, commodities are trading as if there is a money component to their value these days. In part that is true because they are more universally acceptable than the dollar. So, obviously, one way to "do something", a way that will increase national wealth, create the liquidity the Fed so strongly wants, increases tax inflows to the feds, creates jobs (!!!!) and makes people feel better about the country, is to abandon the asinine environmental policies that are limiting growth in oil and natural gas drilling in America. Drill, baby, drill.
By , at
Wed Aug 24, 01:32:00 PM:
As to Michael Mann, here's the key finding: "No direct evidence [that he] fabricated the raw data."
True that. Because he cherry picked the raw data. He developed the "hockey stick" by mixing data sets. He didn't load the gun, only pulled the trigger.
Also, apparently this investigation didn't have access to his e-mails for the key period of time.
FYI, in the month after Climategate broke, Michael Mann got a $560,000 grant paid out of Obama-Pelosi's Porkulus. I couldn't have made that up if I tried. It's nearly as good as including a special tax on tanning salons in ObamaCare. Obama and Valerie Jarrett still chuckle over that one.
By 
Stephen, at
Wed Aug 24, 07:34:00 PM:
To be fair you should mention the possibility that the NSF review is biased. Previous investigations that have cleared people involved in ClimateGate have been anything but fair. What is the NSF's record with respect to its position on global warming and funding studies into global warming? In this article it says the NSF's portfolio for global warming will reach $766 million:
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/02/11/obama-spending-increase-global-warming-research/
To me it smacks of circling the wagons. I don't know who they think they are kidding.
