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Page added on June 11, 2015
America’s Next Economic Boom Could Be Lying Underground
There’s a serious problem in the American economy: Big corporations are doing well, but real household income for average Americans has been falling over the past decade — down 9 percent, according to census data.
“That’s not good for America,” says Harvard economist Michael Porter. “That’s not good for America’s standard of living. That’s not good for our ultimate vitality as a nation.”
That’s why Porter’s excited about the deep reserves of natural gas and oil that have been made accessible by hydraulic fracturing technology, or fracking — a boon he examines in detail in a new report.
“It is a game changer,” Porter says. “We have estimated that already, this is generating a substantial part of our GDP in America. It’s at least as big as the state of Ohio. We’ve added a whole new major state, top-10 state, to our economy.”
Looking not just at drilling jobs but at all related jobs — truck drivers, truck manufacturers, petrochemical engineers and more — Porter says the rise of fracking has added 2.7 million jobs to the economy, most of them with good wages.
Porter also says cheaper natural gas is helping businesses and people all around the country save money.
“The average household is saving about $800 a year,” he says, much of it in passed-on savings from lower-priced consumer products. And his research suggests that figure may keep rising in the next 15 years.
But what about the environment? On this score Porter says energy companies made a mistake, failing to partner with environmentalists at the start to reduce fracking’s impact.
Still, he says, natural gas is cleaner than coal, and that with the right set of policies, cheap natural gas from fracking and alternative energy can work well together.
At a wind turbine blade testing facility on Boston Harbor, blades are being flexed to see how they respond to normal wear and tear. The facility can simulate 20 years of wear and tear in a matter of weeks by vigorously flexing the blades.
Chris Arnold/NPR
At the Wind Technology Testing Center in Boston, Rahul Yarala is helping test new designs — cheaper, lighter and more efficient — for windmill propeller blades, the same kind you see spinning on hillsides to generate electricity. The current test subject is dangling in midair.
Alicia Barton is the CEO of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center. She’s pointing at the massive steel and cement structure that supports the 100- to 200-foot-long blades at the testing center. Barton says the mission of this facility is “to advance the state of wind energy technology in a way that will help that technology become more cost-effective over time.”
Chris Arnold/NPR
“It’s 200 feet long; it’s about 20,000 pounds in weight,” Yarala says. “What we’re testing is the minimal amount of structural elements to make sure it’s also reliable and it won’t break.”
Bringing the cost down will be a key to success for wind energy.
The blades are now to the point where pound for pound, he says, they’re cheaper than airplane wings, despite being more complex.
The center was built with stimulus money, but it’s now funded by the private sector — innovation that is ongoing, Porter notes, regardless of the fracking boom.
“Many people believe that somehow, if we take advantage of these oil and gas resources, that will stop renewables in their tracks,” he says. “That turns out to be just wrong.”
But Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics, doesn’t see a cure-all in the recent petroleum and natural gas surge.
“I’m pretty much skeptical,” Ashworth says of Porter’s new report. “I think he overstates it for a couple of reasons.”
For one, he doesn’t think the country’s going to keep gaining lots of jobs because of fracking. In fact, he says the U.S. recently lost tens of thousands of jobs after oil became so cheap that many companies stopped drilling.
“So the shale oil boom is actually already over,” Ashworth says.
But fuel prices do remain low, and Porter says skeptics just don’t appreciate yet how important that will be for the U.S. economy.
35 Comments on "America’s Next Economic Boom Could Be Lying Underground"
Plantagenet on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 2:11 pm
The conversion of coal-fired power plants to NG fired power plants has helped reduce USA’s carbon footprint. Use of more wind power will reduce it even more.
Its all good.
Apneaman on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 2:18 pm
Revolution? More like a crawl
The energy visionary Vaclav Smil — Bill Gates’s favorite author — says that when our leaders promise quick energy transformations, they’re getting it very wrong.
http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2015/05/energy-visionary-vaclav-smil-quick-transformations-wrong-000017
http://resourceinsights.blogspot.ca/2015/05/the-energy-revolution-will-not-be.html
GregT on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 2:48 pm
A Bridge to Nowhere: Methane Emissions and the Greenhouse Gas Footprint of Natural Gas
Robert W. Howarth
Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University
“In April 2011, we published the first peer-reviewed analysis of the greenhouse gas footprint (GHG) of shale gas, concluding that the climate impact of shale gas may be worse than that of other fossil fuels such as coal and oil because of methane emissions.”
“The best data available now indicate that our estimates of methane emission from both shale gas and conventional natural gas were relatively robust. Using these new, best available data and a 20-year time period for comparing the warming potential of methane to carbon dioxide, the conclusion stands that both shale gas and conventional natural gas have a larger GHG than do coal or oil, for any possible use of natural gas and particularly for the primary uses of residential and commercial heating.”
http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/howarth/publications/Howarth_2014_ESE_methane_emissions.pdf
sugarseam on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 2:50 pm
shortonoil, if you’re out there, I posted a question to you in the main forum… When you have time, no rush.
Apneaman on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 5:13 pm
Here is a potential boom. I mean since we have killed it anyway why not cut it down to sell as wood pellets and then mine the wasteland for minerals…who needs a national park anyway when we have the internet.
Report: Climate change likely to kill Yellowstone forests
http://www.wyofile.com/report-climate-change-likely-to-kill-yellowstone-forests/
Makati1 on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 9:01 pm
Apneamna, the forests of the West Coast are already dying. What fires don’t destroy, drought and heat will. Animals can migrate north when climates change. Trees cannot.
I think we will see a lot of change in our lifetimes. After all, the Gobi Desert in China is on the same latitude as the US Midwest, which is already drying up.
Davy on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 9:07 pm
At least there are forest in North America Mak. Asians have pretty much eliminated most of theirs and are buying up the rest of the worlds and turning it into cheap furniture that last maybe 2 years. What a waste!
clueless on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 9:23 pm
Davy delusional, like North America is detached to planet Earth?
Bwahahahahahahahahaha!!!!
You comment like a 3rd grader.
GregT on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 9:31 pm
Davy,
My living room, dining room, and master bedroom suites were all manufactured in Asia, using Asian hardwoods. They are literally works of art, and will last for generations. In my former life I was a cabinet maker, the North American hardwoods that I used to be able to buy for cheap, are now mostly not even available. Most of the crap manufactured here now, is made out of particle board. Our forests are long since done. Maybe they will return back to their former glory, but not in our lifetimes.
GregT on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 9:31 pm
Clueless,
Fuck off.
Tim on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 9:45 pm
Davy, would that be similar to the terrible waste of petroleum that North Americans go through each day so that they can drive massive fuel-guzzling SUV’s around to satisfy their ego’s?
You cannot point the finger at one particular country compared to the US when it comes to resource depletion. America demands cheap furniture from companies like Costco. Otherwise China would not be building it.
Makati1 on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 10:52 pm
It’s ok guys. Davy cannot see the forests for the trees. America’s good lumber disappeared over 100 years ago. Nothing left but culls and knotty junk left from the days when it was logged over, pre WW1.
I have a 1/1/2 inch thick wooden steamer trunk I made from black walnut cut during the Depression and air dried for 30 years until I used it in the 60s. Beautiful, straight grained and knot free. Try to buy a plank of the same today, and if you can find it, it would cost in excess of $30 per board foot. I paid $ 0.50. There is nothing left of the American forests but scrub wood, useful only for fires.
Davy on Fri, 12th Jun 2015 1:35 am
Greg/Tim, just giving Mak a taste of his own medicine which from his couple of retorts has hit the spot. He likes to dish the shit out but when he gets a taste of his own medicine he chokes. I am balanced on the subject of Asia and the US it is Mak that causes the imbalances. I can bring up plenty of Asian dirty laundry in response to his anti-American agenda.
We have wonderful hardwood forest here in the Ozarks that are for the most part being sustainably managed. We also have Asian buyers here for the cedar, walnut, and oaks. Our forest have recovered from the clear cutting from the turn of the last century. Fossil Fuels allow this and the end of fossil fuels will probably end that when desperate people try to heat their homes again with wood.
Greg, you have to admit the amount of cheap Asian furniture more than outweighs the high quality pieces that can be found from all global regions. We have exceptional pieces of furniture made around here in small amounts. The less expensive stuff is not made because of the Chinese crap.
Tim, the whole world is driving and wasting because of their ego. We live in a global car culture. The US is in decline on this subject Asia is growing but soon to decline. I can turn your point around on you. Americans would not buy the Chinese furniture if they did not make it so cheap for Costco.
It is the greedy corporate capitalist in both counties that have created the destructive globalization. Too much finger pointing is made on Americans and not enough to the rest of the world recently. I would be pointing fingers more at America 20 years ago but now one hand is pointing to American and the other the rest of the world.
You can look at this situation many different ways but aggregate numbers point to significant consumption in Asia relative to US. You can do a per capita look but one must discount that when another region has such a large population disparity to the rest of the world.
GregT on Fri, 12th Jun 2015 2:25 am
Davy,
I was born on the planet Earth. I could have been born in Sri Lanka, Germany, Spain, or Mexico, but I wasn’t, I was born in Canada. All of these “countries” weren’t of my making, and I had no choice in which country I was born into. I could have been the most evil asshole in the world, no matter where I was born, or I could have been an angel.
You are identifying yourself with a country Davy. You are not a country. You are not the oligarchs that control your country, and you are not the people in your country that are responsible for brutally murdering millions of innocent people. You are yourself, no matter where you were born, you are Davy.
I find it very bizarre that you, of all people Davy, cannot separate yourself from those that have drawn the lines in the sand, that have discriminated, segregated, oppressed, and brutally murdered people around the world. People just like you Davy, that only wanted to see their children grow up, and to live their lives in peace.
There is no doubt in my mind that you are a good man Davy. That’s the thing about forums, there are no facades. What you see is what you get.
What I honestly do not understand, is why, as a kindred soul on this planet, do you identify yourself with some of the most evil and ruthless people that have ever lived on this earth?
You are not an American Davy, you are not a Brit, you are not a Icelander, and you are not a Jap. You are a human being, just like every other person is a human being. You do not have divine rights above other human beings of any other ‘nationality’, just as they do not have divine rights above you.
Sorry for the rant, but I’ve just about had enough of everyone, anywhere, playing this game that our oligarchs have created, to justify murdering other people, in other places, with different colours of ink, on different sized pieces of cloth.
Davy on Fri, 12th Jun 2015 3:10 am
Point taken Greg but it is the extremist on this site like Mak that cause me to bow-up and defend my country. There is too much shit out in the rest of the world to have all the blame put on American. Not mentioning the full story is a distortion of the truth IOW a lie with an agenda.
The difference with the anti-American here and me is I agree with the anti-Americans on the filth in DC and the failures of American culture. My point is there is a big world out there where most of the rest of the land mass is and the populations are. In these places have the same filth just not as powerful a stench as Washington’s.
OK, I woke up as I do sometimes from a full day of fasting, farm work, and then my workout. For those of you that don’t know me I fast twice a week eating no food and I do a work out on those days. It is part of my prepper training. The hunger pains and the working out with no food in my system is a good training for what is ahead for all of us. We are going to go days without food but still have to do hard physical activity. It can be tough but you will get used to it. The nausea of an empty stomach is good mental and physical training
Anyway I woke up at 1:00am from hunger so I got up and ate and preached to you all. This will end my commenting for the wee hours and my fast break. Like an old Indian sage said “ the dogs are going to sleep” Enough of my preaching. Good night.
GregT on Fri, 12th Jun 2015 3:24 am
Davy,
What if you had of been born in Russia? Would you be a Russian exceptionalist? If you had of been born in China, A chinese exceptionalist?
You are not an American Davy. You are a human being. You have been indoctrinated into believing in the people that are in control of you.
Do you not understand this?
Makati1 on Fri, 12th Jun 2015 4:17 am
GregT, he does not want to understand … or so it seems to me. I may be the most anti-US bitch on this site, but I have my reasons for defending the rest of the world from my plundering, murdering, country. The lifestyle of Americans is built on plundering and murdering the less able in the world, not on ability or right.
There are some good people left in America and you seem to be one of them, but there are a lot like Davy that will refuse to give credit to any country trying to avoid war and loss of sovereignty because they are brainwashed to believe all the negatives about the ‘villain de jour”.
Not too long ago, Russia and China were US buddies and world peace seemed to be a possibility. But, then they had the balls to say no to the Emperor’s wishes or bend over and take the shaft without complaining. Now they are on the American ‘shit list’ and nothing good can be said about them in US MSM circles.
Davy should kiss the ground he walks on and be glad that his parents were not Bangladeshi. I know I am glad I was born in PA, but that does not mean I cannot see the hell we are making all over the world today with our ‘wars of choice’ or the hellish future we have created for our American heirs, if any survive the next few decades. Europe knows what war looks like close up and personal. Americans only see it in movies or TV as propaganda.
Enough ranting … going to see “Jurassic World” at the local theater with friends soon. P201 or $4.50 each.
Hello on Fri, 12th Jun 2015 6:25 am
Makati: Your social security check not yet arrived from the US? Is that why you’re in a bad mood?
Davy on Fri, 12th Jun 2015 7:41 am
Mak said “lifestyle of Americans is built on plundering and murdering the less able in the world, not on ability or right.” Mak join the human race that pretty well describes globalism to a “T”.
I do kiss the ground I walk on and I am protesting the soiling of the US constitution by the neo-con/globalist cabal in DC but I will do that in a balanced way. Russia and China are in no way better than the US. They rank at the bottom of the list in multiple categories of governance both domestic and foreign. I am not going to take a lecture on how great Russia and China are just so you can diminish the US.
Thanks Hello for mentioning why Makster should be blowing kisses across the water from his Philippines high-rise. He is being paid to be a (in his words) “the most anti-US bitch on this site”
GregT on Fri, 12th Jun 2015 12:02 pm
Makati: Your social security check not yet arrived from the US?
This is another thing that I just don’t get. We work our entire lives, we are taxed on the money that is created out of thin air, we are taxed on our food, our clothing, our children, our homes, our incomes, our labour, hell we even pay taxes on our taxes, on our taxes. Yet, when we are ‘retired’ and they throw us a few bones back, some people believe that this is some form of entitlement?
Sorry, but some people truly are brainwashed.
Northwest Resident on Fri, 12th Jun 2015 12:32 pm
GregT — Good point on social security “benefits”. And let’s not forget that what they really want to do is to invest your SS tax paid into the stock market, where they can legally take it all back from you via stock market manipulation and/or other financial related tricks.
I think TPTB most definitely work on the principle that W.C. Fields expressed perfectly so long ago “Never give a sucker an even break.” In other words, if you can exploit somebody, then DO IT! We see a lot of that these days, probably it has always been that way, and likely to become even more so before the dust settles on this version of human civilization.
Davy on Fri, 12th Jun 2015 12:52 pm
Come on Greg, social security at this point for all practical purposes is an unfounded liability. Anyone receiving social security now is getting a wealth transfer from those paying in payroll taxes. The amount people are getting is bogus since Social Security is unfunded and soon to be technically broke. Since the U.S. Government and most other global governments are in effect insolvent social security is a gift of wealth transfer.
Mak’s generation and earlier generations bankrupted the country by embracing poor policies. Those generations coming after Mak’s including my own are fully on the entitlement bandwagon and will soon find out there is not enough money for everyone. A crash will drive that home quickly. A long emergency will just do it slowly with more stealth.
GregT on Fri, 12th Jun 2015 1:42 pm
I will never even recoup more than small percentage of what I have put into SS, unless I lived to be 120. In Canada we have the option of putting money into RRSPs as a sort of tax shelter, but as NWR says above, that money is being used by the banks throughout my entire working life, so that the bankers can make more money. If I decided that I wanted to take all of my savings out of my RRSPs, I would be taxed 43% on those savings. We have all willingly been scammed, yet people still can’t figure it out.
GregT on Fri, 12th Jun 2015 1:50 pm
Davy,
I know how much you dislike Mak, but please try to put things into perspective. It wasn’t Mak, or Mak’s generation that set up these Ponzi schemes, it was the bankers, and their pet economists. Most of all, what has/will bankrupt us all, is our monetary systems. People have tried to warn the public for decades about the consequences of fiat currencies, but the public have simply ignored them. Ron Paul wanted to ‘end the fed’, Joe public thought he was nuts. He wasn’t.
Davy on Fri, 12th Jun 2015 2:20 pm
Oh, Greg I like Mak. Mak and I like to beat up on each other. We are like brothers that can’t get along. We are both part of the doomer and prepper band of brothers.
On the subject of social security I have a very big chunk in there I will never see. I don’t deserve it either. It is not real so I really have no money there. It is like my inheritance I know I will never see. I just ignore it.
What I don’t ignore is my tangible wealth I have from prepping. That is real right here right now until I die or someone takes it from me.
As for Mak and other getting a social entitlement checks. They are the lesser of the evil entitlement recipients. The real villains are the 1%’ers and especially the 1%’ers of the 1%’ers. These folks and we must include the political, administrative, and industrial segment of the population that makes the 1%’era wealth possible are the real recipients of entitlement. They are realizing private profit at the public expense. The Banksters are the biggest fraudsters. These groups are the real parasites.
In that respect Mak should get his check but Mak should never think that is real money he deserves. Someone is working so he gets his check. The system is technically broke and we are all broke.
If you are working now in a job with a future like raising food then you are truly a worker. Most other jobs are just part of the slow motion train wreck of collapse. If you are an accountant what is that going to be worth in the collapse? Most of our service jobs have no future now. This is the surreal aspect of pre-collpase. Get a real job and raise food. We are going to be some hungry hairless apes soon.
GregT on Fri, 12th Jun 2015 2:25 pm
Do you guys stateside pay INTO social security? Or is it only a benefit?
apneaman on Fri, 12th Jun 2015 2:44 pm
Consider this piece and the ask your self what benefits there will be, if any in 10 -15 years? Most social safety nets and freedoms in western countries are and have been systematically dismantled.
Gottesdiener and Garcia, How to Dismantle This Country
A Magical Mystery Tour of American Austerity Politics
One State’s Attempt to Destroy Democracy and the Environment
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176008/tomgram:_gottesdiener_and_garcia,_how_to_dismantle_this_country/
apneaman on Fri, 12th Jun 2015 2:55 pm
Republicans’ leading climate denier tells the pope to butt out of climate debate
James Inhofe, infamous for tossing a snowball across the Senate floor to demonstrate ‘the greatest hoax ever perpetrated against the American people’, says Pope Francis should ‘stay with his job’ during a pitch to fellow unbelievers
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/11/james-inhofe-republican-climate-denier-pope-francis
Davy on Fri, 12th Jun 2015 3:20 pm
Greg, you pay in through a payroll deduction. Some people that have never worked are not eligible but these days there are other safety nets to cover them.
GregT on Fri, 12th Jun 2015 3:54 pm
Thanks Davy,
I found all kinds of info on the internet. It would seem to me, that unless the funds were extremely poorly mismanaged, SS is a huge money maker for the federal government. Much like here in Canada, it is a kind of forced pension plan. Both the employee and the employer pay into it. So by the time that anyone retires, far more funds have been taken away, then ever will be paid back. Another scam.
Northwest Resident on Fri, 12th Jun 2015 4:06 pm
GregT — Based on what I’ve read, Social Security was a loser from the get-go because it was based on the false premise of constant economic growth and constant population increase.
If birth rates remained constant and economic growth remained constant, then there would theoretically always be enough working payers into social security to support those individuals receiving income from social security.
Where it has fallen apart is birth rates have not remained steady, they are declining. And economic growth most definitely has not remained steady, it too is declining and will soon be going negative.
I read that when social security program was started, there were something like seven or eight workers paying into social security for every person receiving benefits from social security. Today, that number is more like three or four workers paying in for every person receiving benefits.
And our US government has also used the social security fund as a piggy bank, borrowing and leveraging that huge amount of money to make ends meet.
It was never about getting out what you put in. It was always about putting in to support those currently taking out.
Social Security is just another dead man walking in the twilight period of the age of oil. One of many.
GregT on Fri, 12th Jun 2015 4:41 pm
Ya NWR,
They’re already saying that the Canadian pension plan will be done soon too. Glad I payed into it for all these years.
apneaman on Fri, 12th Jun 2015 5:02 pm
Most of the government pension plans were dreamt up when life expectancy for a man (the main breadwinner of the day) was 67 years old. I think it is 80-82 years in Canada now and a couple more for women, who started working in force a decade or two after the plans were implemented. Meanwhile all G-20 governments have installed bail-in legislation for work pensions. I doubt it will all go at once – more like Cypress. They will take one bite at a time.
Makati1 on Fri, 12th Jun 2015 9:40 pm
GregT, the US SS tax is currently 12.4% of your gross income up to an income of $118,500/year. If you make more than that, the amount in excess is not taxed, so the upper 20+% has a lower average tax than those making less.
I never had a choice, so I feel I am entitled to that money as long as it lasts. I have a printout of my contributions over my 46 years of working and paying. At an average of 3% interest, I am still due a lot of money. (3% was what the banks paid for savings when I started my career) I doubt it will last long enough for me to break even. Especially as I do not use any Medicare benefits.
Davy on Sat, 13th Jun 2015 6:29 am
Mak, you don’t deserve anything from the US. The SS system is broke so you are just asking others to send money to a hateful prick who lives in another country and spends his days attacking the land of his birth.