In today’s The Gartman Letter (subscription required), my friend Dennis Gartman featured an excerpt from a January 2013 article by Forbes energy contributor David Blackmon titled “Horizontal Drilling: A Technological Marvel Ignored.” Here is that excerpt:

We often hear spokespeople for the oil and natural gas industry talk about how the massive new shale gas and oil resources discovered in recent years were made possible by the wedding of two technologies: Hydraulic Fracturing (“Fracking” in media parlance) and Horizontal Drilling. Once that statement is made, the conversation with news reporters, at townhall meetings and in public speaking engagements then quickly focuses on the “Fracking” part of the equation, leaving Horizontal Drilling to sit largely ignored and unappreciated by the media and the public at large.

This is a shame, because the truth is that, of the two technologies, Horizontal Drilling is the real marvel of engineering and scientific innovation. While impressive in its own right, the main innovations in “Fracking” in recent years have been beefing up the generating horsepower to accommodate horizontal wells rather than vertical ones, and refining of the fluids used to conserve water and create better, longer lasting fractures in the target formation.

This is all great stuff, and all necessary to create our ongoing shale boom, but the real marvel is the innovation that has taken place in the realm of Horizontal Drilling. Think about what this advancement has meant just in terms of access to the resources: When drilling into a hydrocarbon bearing formation 100 feet thick, vertical drilling would allow an operator to contact 100 feet of rock, which would limit your potential recovery to whatever oil or gas would flow into that length of pipe.

Horizontal Drilling now allows these same operators to drill and set pipe for a mile or more horizontally through this same rock formation. You are now contacting and “Fracking” 5,200 feet of rock rather than 100 feet, which multiplies expected well recovery rates many times over. The technology employed is so advanced and exacting that drillers today can hit a target at the end of a drill string that is 10,000 feet vertical with a mile long horizontal section that is no more than a few inches in diameter. Drillers also use sensors to detect particularly promising rock intervals within the formation, and are able to move the drill string up or down, left or right as they drill through the horizontal section to target those intervals.

These extraordinary technological achievements enable operators to maximize returns from each well, which in turn means higher royalty payments to mineral owners, and higher tax revenues for local and state taxing authorities.

Advanced horizontal drilling technology also produces positive results for the environment. A single horizontal well can replace the need to drill a dozen or even more vertical wells to access a similar level of resource. For the environment this means far less air emissions, far less water usage and disposal needs, and far less land impacted to produce a similar amount of oil and natural gas.

Add to all of that the fact that the industry’s ability to access natural gas in shale formations, and the supply abundance that has produced, has enabled the conversion of dozens of older coal-fired power plants to cleaner-buring natural gas. That has led directly to the lowering of US greenhouse gas emissions to levels not seen since the early 1990s, a result not matched by any other industrialized nation.

MP: Since David wrote this article in early 2013, greenhouse gas emissions from the electric power sector have fallen by more than 11% and were lower last year than any year since 1988, nearly 30 years ago, see chart above.

David Blackmon writes about energy for Forbes on a regular basis, below are links to some of his most recent Forbes columns, and you can follow David on Twitter here:

Rig Streak Ends, Oil Price Streak Maintains – What Does It All Mean?

The “Peak Oil” Pig Returns With A New Shade Of Lipstick

The Eagle Ford Shale Finally Gets A Little Media Love

Re: CO2 reductions, I’m sure exporting 60,000 factories to China and Mexico had nothing to do with it….

That’s nonsense. Factory output in the US reached an all-time high in Q1 2017: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS

Unfortunately, people who are convinced the US doesn’t make stuff anymore will never be convinced otherwise with facts.

@Mark: I’m not denying that natural gas substitution for coal has played a big part in the CO2 reduction. I’m just saying it’s not the whole story.

In particular, that first big drop from 2007-2009 in your chart above cannot really be attributed to natural gas, because that happened before the fracking/horizontal drilling revolution began ramping up in a big way.

Here is a chart of US energy production from eia. As you can see, there is a 10% drop in industrial consumption from 2007 to 2009, first due to sky-high energy prices, then later through a collapse in demand due to the Great Recession. Since then, net generation for industrial uses has clawed back, but is still well below the 2002 high.

Meanwhile, all this was happening before natural gas really began ramping up. This eia historical chart of Pennsylvania natural gas production says it all. (Yes, Texas produces about the same amount of gas that Pennsylvania now produces, but Texas production has been more or less flat since the 1960s, and no other states come close.) As you can see, the chart doesn’t really go exponential until starting in 2009.

Now look at your FRED chart for manufacturing output. Yes, output is now at an all time high–but just barely topping the 2008 high by 0.18%. Moreover, if the Great Recession hadn’t happened, and the China Shock hadn’t happened, and if manufacturing had continued to grow at its pre-2008 historical rate, manufacturing output would be close to 50% higher than it is presently.

Thus, there are two things clearly going on here: there is the ramp up in natural gas, but there was also lackluster manufacturing growth over the last decade. Probably if manufacturing output was 50% higher than now, demand for electricity would be much higher, and CO2 output would either be flat or increasing somewhat despite the negative contribution of natural gas.

None of that supports your claim, Warren. In fact, you’ll notice that there isn’t even any correlation to support your claim. For the first half of your so-called “China Shock,” CO2 emissions were rising not falling.

Besides, as Mark said, your comment is nonsense. US manufacturing is near record highs and emissions (and employment) are down. It’s automation and increased efficiency, not offshoring. A higher level of output may shift the graph up or down, but not reverse the trend.

More nonsense, the shale gas revolution started in 2007, that’s the year when US nat gas production started to increase significantly, right about the time that CO2 emissions from electric power peaked.

And none of that is related to the main point of the article and post: that horizontal drilling is a revolutionary, game-changing technology that is mostly overlooked. Focus on that main point…..

Since horizontal drilling is something I have a bit of hands-on experience experience with, maybe you guys will enjoy a brief primer on how it actually works, since the article doesn’t touch on that very much.

The technology is really a mishmash of stuff that’s mostly been around for decades:

1. Mud motors: these were invented by the Russians actually, because their steel was so crappy, they would twist off their drill strings using the rotary drills the Americans used to use. The way these work is the pumping of the drilling mud causes the drill bit to rotate. For directional drilling the bits have a small ~1 to 2 degree kink in them: thus when the whole drill string is rotating, the hole will be relatively straight. When you want to insert a curve, you stop rotating, align the bit so the kink is in the direction you want, then start “sliding”, that is, drill with the mud motor alone, and it will drill a curved hole. Naturally, this is slower than “turning & burning”, so they’d rather not “slide” too much. A 90 degree turn might take about a thousand feet. Here’s a profile of an actual Marcellus well showing the well plan and the hole as actually drilled: http://i.imgur.com/P3FSyUo.png

2. Sensors: there’s a magnetometer that can measure its position relative to the Earth’s magnetic field, thus they can tell the angle of the hole WRT to horizontal as well as the azimuth (compass direction). The other important one is the gamma detector that consists of a small cube of some sort of mineral surrounded by foil on 5 sides and photodetector on the 6th: when a gamma ray enters the cube, a photon is emitted which then causes a voltage spike on the light detector. The gamma is useful because the more organic matter there is, the more radioactive the formation is.

3. Measurement while drilling (MWD): this is really the key technological innovation IMO: communication to the surface of what’s going on down at the drill bit via sonar. There is a plunger about a foot long and maybe a couple of inches in diameter that can take information from the sensors, and then send low band width pulses of sound, basically, right back up through the center of the drill string, through the mud that’s rushing down hole, back to a transducer at the drilling floor. The data from this gets sent out to people’s computers in real time. As you can imagine, this is a lot of stuff to put together: the “tool” that contains the drill bit, mud motor, gamma/magneto sensor, computer, battery, sonar tranducer ranges in length from like 70 to over 100 feet long.

4. Geosteering: Arguably the most important part in a place like Appalachia, not so much in flatter areas like Texas. Even with the best seismic data available, it can be hard to predict exactly where the best part of the formation is going to be. So as you’re drilling, you compare the measured gamma with a known gamma profile of the desired target zone (usually taken from a nearby vertical well). Here’s a copy of an an actual gamma profile used on the same well: http://i.imgur.com/9UMhbqq.png

Geosteering can be more of an art than a science: e.g., you’re cruising along at the tip of a high gamma lobe where you want to be, and then your gamma starts declining. Does this mean you are above or below the high gamma peak? A: You don’t really know, and have to make an educated guess. Thus you’re not going to be right 100% of the time. And so its really a matter of risk management: the goal IMO is to make the “right” mistakes, if that makes any sense. That is, you want to err on the side of least bad consequences. Here is a profile of the same well, one that I geosteered; did a pretty good job; kept it in the target zone the whole way: http://i.imgur.com/RKSBl4P.png

Protip: the best spot in the Marcellus is at the very bottom, most radioactive section. If you can get in and stay there, you can increase the production of your well by like a factor of three compared to other sections of the Marcellus. However, this, from a drilling perspective, is a very high beta, aggressive strategy because you are right above the Onondaga limestone formation, which is death if you hit it.

5. I would add that drilling rigs have evolved a lot since the 1980’s when I first worked as a floor hand. The best ones come from Canada and are mostly automated. Nowadays, adding sections of drilling pipe is comparatively easy: a robotic arm fetches a new section, and everything is controlled by the driller, sitting in his Captain’s chair in a t-shirt behind bullet-proof glass tweaking joysticks as if it were a giant Nintendo game. No throwing of tongs and chains any more. There’s only one guy on the floor, and his only job is to swab a bit of grease into the pipe threads (and remember to grab the damned filter screen! 😉 )

Since horizontal drilling is something I have a bit of hands-on experience experience with

You should probably stick with areas of which you have knowledge. As we have seen repeatedly, when you venture into unknown territory (such as economics), your comments become about as valuable as a warm bucket of spit.

Good stuff. I didn’t know about any of this technology. Neither did Hillary Clinton when she told Bill O’Reilly she wanted to seize oil company profits because “they’re not inventing anything new.”

Thanks for the excellent lesson on drilling. Perhaps in the future you could enlighten us with more of your expertise in geology and less of what you refer to as economics, but which isn’t.

Did you have to mention that awful name? I now sometimes go days without being exposed to either the name or a picture. I’m slowly healing.

If you take the developments Warren cites the trick was combining them all to make a new way of doing things. From a geological point of view horizontal drilling thru shales would not work very well without fracking as the permeability of the shales is very low cracking them increases the permeability greatly making the wells economic. In the old days the geologic scheme was you had a source rock cooked in underground for some time. then had a pathway for the fluids to migrate to a trap (reservoir rock with a seal) With the modern technique, we go right to the source rock and produce from there reducing the loss in getting to the more permeable reservoir rock.

“Now look at your FRED chart for manufacturing output. Yes, output is now at an all time high–but just barely topping the 2008 high by 0.18%.”

Umm, Warren, U. S. CO2 emissions are now 25% lower than 2008, with the same manufacturing rate. The growing manufacturing rate seems no longer highly correlated to increased CO2 emissions in the U.S.

On a related note I found this site on Wikipedia with total us power demand: https://www.statista.com/statistics/201794/us-electricity-consumption-since-1975/ You will note that total electric consumption in the US has been flat since 2010 (and I suspect a couple of years before but they don’t have the data there). It has been noted elsewhere that total electric demand is now growing at less than 1% per year. and the graph supports that from 2005 on wards, where as before that it was growing faster about 3%) This has helped the curve as older less efficient plants are retired due to reaching the end of their economic life and requiring significant investments to keep running. Many have noted that the power usage to gdp link that used to be present appears to have been broken.

note not wikipedia found better link

Not really. Slow growth in electricity consumption is yet another symptom of slow economic growth.

Slow growth in electricity consumption is yet another symptom of slow economic growth.

Or, more likely, more efficient forms of energy consumption.

Review your supply & demand chart for electricity, then tell me why your response is invalid.

$50 says you’re reasoning from a price change again.

From the National Review article that Mark linked to on twitter:

“Fracking has allowed the U.S. to enjoy some of the lowest electricity rates and gas prices in the industrial world. The result is that cheap energy costs are luring all sorts of energy-intensive industries — from aluminum to plastics to fertilizers — back to the United States, with the potential of creating millions of new, high-paying jobs.”

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/449248/fracking-industry-united-states-energy-independence-oil-middle-east-venezuela

Yes, you’re reasoning from a price change. Plus, comparing two unlike things. Plus undermining your argument that it is slow growth causing low electricity production.

“you’re reasoning from a price change”

Heh. Somehow I knew you were going to say that, Jon. However, I am not just reasoning from a price change, I am also looking at quantities. We can put some numbers to it.

From 2007 (since that’s when Mr. Perry says the shale gas boom started) to 2015 (since that’s the last year the eia reports on I could find), the real price of electricity declined from 10.65¢/kWh (9.13¢ adjusted for inflation in 2015 dollars) to 10.41¢ (2015 dollars). A difference of -2.25%

Meanwhile, industrial consumption of electricity in the US declined from 1,027,832 GWh to 986,508 GWh, a difference of -4.02%.

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_01_02.html

So, the price has declined, but the quantity demanded by industrial users has also declined. Thus, the decline in price cannot be primarily due to a shock–otherwise the quantity demanded would increase.

Therefore, the demand curve for electricity is heading south. The question is why? Increased efficiency or a declining output?

We can break this down into industrial usage, and non-industrial consumption.

According to the FRED Industrial Production: Manufacturing (NAICS) Index (2012 = 100; Annual frequency), from 2007 to 2015 the index declined from 107.4832 to 102.5957, down by 4.55%. Therefore–OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL–electricity demand should be down 4.55%, but it’s only down by 4.02%. Consequently, increased efficiency in industrial electricity consumption can only account for 11.6% of the decline in industrial consumption.

As for non-industrial usage, the per capita consumption of non-industrial electricity has declined by 9.085 MWhr to 8.625 MWhr, a decline of 460 kWhr per person or -5%, according to my calculations. Over the same time period, the median household income according to FRED has declined by 1.6% over the same time period. In this case, fully 68% of the decline in per capita electricity demand (non-industrial) can be attributed to increased efficiency.

(Admittedly, I am excluding global warming from my analysis–if temperatures really are increasing, then more of the per capita decline in electricity consumption must be due to efficiency increases.)

Therefore, it looks like we’re both right: efficiency is causing dramatic declines in energy demand, especially on the consumer side of things, but it’s also the case that free trade induced China Schock has also caused dramatic declines in industrial electricity demand.

Bottom line: Not all of the US CO2 output drop can attributed to fracking and efficiency gains: we are definitely exporting a chunk of our CO2 “pollution” to China, whose electricity production and CO2 production continue to shoot through the roof unabated. Not also that we are exchanging relatively clean CO2 production from natural gas, for dirty Chinese CO2 production from coal. Therefore, if we care about global warming, then the USA, for the sake of Mother Earth and the rest of humanity, should pursue a frankly mercantilist economic policy and strive for a big trade surplus and once again become the world’s go-to source of manufactured goods. (Note that I do not care about global warming, nor am I a mercantilist.)

Somehow I knew you were going to say that, Jon.

Ok good. At least you’re aware you’re making the same mistakes over and over again. Now, you just need to stop making them.

“Not also that we are exchanging relatively clean CO2 production from natural gas, for dirty Chinese CO2 production from coal. Therefore, if we care about global warming …”

CO2 is CO2 is CO2. It isn’t “dirty”, and the source of it is irrelevant. The “dirty” aerosol products of combustion of coal vs gas actually reduce global warming by blocking the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth. Therefore, those who care about global warming (I don’t), should agitate for MORE coal usage, not less.

but it’s also the case that free trade induced China Schock [sic] has also caused dramatic declines in industrial electricity demand.

You’ve only asserted this. You’ve given no evidence of it whatsoever (in fact, your evidence works against you. You’ve just cherry picked some data that you think supports you).

nor am I a mercantilist.

Well, that’s obviously not true. “I’m not a meat-eater. I just like eating meat.”

@Ron: American CO2 is not Chinese CO2: the CO2/Btu is less for natural gas generated electricity than it is for coal generated electricity. Therefore, CO2 output that we export to China is not pound for pound. It’s more like pound for two pounds.

@ Jon: THAT is a mere assertion. The evidence I presented is what it is. You think it’s false, then take it up with the EIA and BLS, not me. Better yet, you could, you know, try to present some evidence for your own speculations.

mercantilism /ˈmɜːkəntɪˌlɪzəm/ noun 1. (economics) Also called mercantile system. a theory prevalent in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries asserting that the wealth of a nation depends on its possession of precious metals and therefore that the government of a nation must maximize the foreign trade surplus.

Arguing for balanced trade is not the same as arguing for a massive trade surplus. You remind me of creationists who think that arguments for evolution are arguments against GOD….

“Ok good. At least you’re aware you’re making the same mistakes over and over again. Now, you just need to stop making them.”

And this is simply pure internet trolling masquerading as a straw man argument….

Therefore–OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL–electricity demand should be down 4.55%

No, this is incorrect. You’re assuming unit elasticity between the two. That may or may not be the case. You’d need a lot more evidence than you currently have to make that claim.

“ Therefore, CO2 output that we export to China is not pound for pound. It’s more like pound for two pounds.</i"

Correct. The substance is the same, but the amount produced per BTU is different. But since we don't care about global warming, we don't care about CO2 production.

“Arguing for balanced trade is not the same as arguing for a massive trade surplus.”

Arguing that the balance of trade has a significant effect on the wealth of a nation makes that a distinction without a difference.

“No, this is incorrect. You’re assuming unit elasticity between the two.”

No kidding, that’s why I wrote–OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL–I’ve learned through experience not to take your level of background knowledge for granted.

And why shouldn’t we assume unit elasticity? If it takes E kWhr’s to make a widget, then the total electricity consumed depends on the quantity Q of widgets manufactured:

E(tot) = E x Q

Therefore–OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL–if Q declines by 4.55%, then E(tot) should also decline by 4.55%. (Note that no prices are used in the above reasoning.)

Yes, of course, anything can happen. Yellowstone could explode tomorrow, in which case the demand for electricity is going to explode as well. However, for the sake of the argument, I’m assuming Yellowstone isn’t going to blow tomorrow.

And actually, now that I relook at it, I can see I made a mistake in my calculations: if Q is down by 4.55%, but E(tot) is only down by 4.02%, then that entails that US manufacturers–contrary to your claim–have become LESS efficient. That is of course the default assumption: that as energy prices decline, efficiency–OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL–will tend to decline as well. E.g., when gasoline is cheap, people buy gas guzzlers, and vice versa.

Me: “Arguing for balanced trade is not the same as arguing for a massive trade surplus.”

Ron H: “Arguing that the balance of trade has a significant effect on the wealth of a nation makes that a distinction without a difference.”

No Ron, you’ve got that exactly backwards: the free trade argument is that trade deficits do not matter. Therefore, trade surpluses must not matter either. IOW–according to the latest version of the free trade theory–if we were running a $2 billion dollar a day trade surplus rather than a $2B/day trade deficit, then GDP and GDP growth would be exactly the same either way, the only difference being we consumatrons get to consume less stuff.

Does that make sense? Not to me, but YMMV.

Good old Ron H. Didn’t you promise not to respond to Warren anymore? Oh well, Ron H, “Prevarication” is your middle name.

My personal troll has followed me here. down little doggy!

As usual, Greg Webb, your inability to process details and nuance have led you astray, or perhaps it’s just your leaky memory.

In either case, my intent has been, and is, to not respond to Warren on the subject of tariffs. His latest comment to which I DID respond isn’t about tariffs.

You understand the difference between ‘tariffs’ and ‘balance of trade’, right?

If you’re going to read my comments, at least read them carefully and think about what you have read so as to not embarrass yourself like this.

No kidding, that’s why I wrote–OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL–I’ve learned through experience not to take your level of background knowledge for granted.

I know you wrote that. You’re still wrong (in fact, because you added in this caveat, you’ve made your analysis incorrect). Unlike you, I’m a careful reader.

And why shouldn’t we assume unit elasticity?

Consider the following: a firm makes a widget. About 99% of their electricity use is from just operating the building: running lights, powering the drink machine in the break room, the security system, that sort of thing. Only 1% of their energy use depends on output. If their output drops 100%, how much would their electric use drop by? 1%. If one claimed that their electricity use would drop by 100%, all else held equal, then he’d be wrong. The only way for this to be correct is if the firm itself shuts down; however, the caveat “all else held equal” necessarily precludes such an outcome.

Since your analysis depends on no fixed costs (“According to the FRED Industrial Production: Manufacturing (NAICS) Index…down by 4.55%. Therefore–OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL–electricity demand should be down 4.55%…”), and your caveat necessarily means there are fixed costs, your analysis is at best biased, at worst incorrect, QED.

But Jon, why should we assume that 99% of industrial usage is fixed? I don’t assume there are no fixed costs, I just assume they are relatively negligible for the big picture. E.g., do you have any idea how an electric arc blast furnace works? They jam a bunch of scrap metal in a melting pot, insert giant electrodes, then turn on the juice. Yes, such places have lights and air conditioners, but that usages is negligible compared to energy going into the manufacturing itself. In my own experience in oil rigs, I can guarantee you the vast majority of energy consumed is running the rig itself, and not lights and air conditioning for the workers.

In fact, I can prove this: if you were correct, then industrial usage would obey similar usage patterns compared to residential and commercial usage: that is, there’d be a big spike in July and August, but there isn’t:

http://i.imgur.com/xIryoQO.png

I don’t assume there are no fixed costs, I just assume they are relatively negligible for the big picture.

Po-tay-to, po-tah-to. But again, you need to justify such an assumption since your entire analysis builds off it. Unlike most economic assumptions, which are added in for simplicity’s sake (like “homo economicus or ceteris paribus), your analysis’ outcome depends on your assumption. So, justify it.

Your blast furnace example is a good reason to NOT assume unit elasticity.

How many furnaces do you have? What is the optimum number of workers per furnace? Can you run one that’s half full as efficiently as one that is full?

If you increase your output will you have to install another blast furnace? Hire 10 more workers? install additional electric service? Buy another truck? Every cost doesn’t scale in step with unit output.

Producing another 10 tons/mo of product may reduce your profit margin or even cost you more than the amount of your increased sales.

“ IOW–according to the latest version of the free trade theory–if we were running a $2 billion dollar a day trade surplus rather than a $2B/day trade deficit, then GDP and GDP growth would be exactly the same either way, the only difference being we consumatrons get to consume less stuff.”

Do you have a reference for that latest version of the “Free Trade Theory”? I can’t seem to find it.

You said you would not respond to Warren. You lied. Perhaps you ought to write what you mean instead of changing as you go.

Again, a careful reading would disabuse you of that false memory. My comment is back there somewhere if you car to look.

Obviously your memory isn’t good enough to remind people of what they know they wrote previously, you doddering old fool. Assuming, that is that you understood it correctly the first time.

Now – which string was that? I think I have it right this time.

Ron H, it appears that your senility is setting in early. I’m am sorry that you cannot remember. Please look it up.

I have no need to look it up, and I have no inclination to do so. It is you who are confused about what I wrote, If you wish to challenge me, find the original comment, otherwise you are just talking out of your ass, as usual.

No need. Of course, Ron H is equivocating his previous statements as usual.

Ah. the Troll Puppet speaks from his ass.

Warren: Review your supply & demand chart for electricity, then tell me why your response [that increased efficiency can explain the falling demand] is invalid.

Also Warren: In this case, fully 68% of the decline in per capita electricity demand (non-industrial) can be attributed to increased efficiency.

Well, gee, Warren. It appears you’re caught in a contradiction. You first claim that it is invalid (indeed, it must necessarily be invalid) that increased efficiency is causing reduced electrical demand and then you say that increased efficiency is the primary cause of the decreased demand.

If it weren’t for your constant claims otherwise, I’d be left with the impression you don’t know jack about what you’re talking about…

I see the uneducated, brainless ass (Ron H) prevaricates again.

“This has helped the curve as older less efficient plants are retired due to reaching the end of their economic life and requiring significant investments to keep running.”

Yes, natural gas now accounts for the largest source share of electricity generation in the U.S.

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=30872

Interesting chart on that link. It shows the vast majority of new natural gas capacity came online before the fracking revolution really ramped up. And since that ramp-up renewables (wind & solar) account for the majority of growth in new capacity.

” The increase in natural gas generation since 2005 is primarily a result of the continued cost-competitiveness of natural gas relative to coal.”

I believe that combined cycle electrical generation plants allow the burning of either coal or gas. This optionality has been preferred since the early 2000s and results in burning abundant natural gas.

A combined cycle refers to the reuse of the waste heat from a gas turbine generator to power a steam turbine. I don’t think alternate fuels can be used.

https://powergen.gepower.com/resources/knowledge-base/combined-cycle-power-plant-how-it-works.html

I’ll be darned, you are right. 🙂

Yes, I was confused because many electricity generating systems use a “combination” of natural gas burning plants and coal burners. As a result of a combined two type generating plant system, the switch to lower cost natural gas has occurred in many system away from coal.

I’ll be darned, you are right.”

I know, that’s surprising, but it happens every now and then. 🙂

Yep. Even the uneducated get one right occasionally. 🙂

What’s this? My personal troll is following me around like a puppy. Go home, little doggy.

Greg G. was right. Pulling on your strings is just like operating puppet.

Don’t you have some unfounded assertions to walk back now that you’ve since you’ve been called out on them?

Well, look at that! Two responses from the uneducated guy who claims to be ignoring my comments. I must have struck a nerve.

You are Greg G make quite the couple. The “anarcho-capitalist” who hates government except if it is your HOA, and “free trader” who believes that protectionist legislation actually protects companies and workers unable to compete with foreign competition. Yes, quite the marriage of inconsistent ideas. Well, you guys have each other, don’t you.

https://media1.giphy.com/media/q6gpCYRQZM1EY/200w.gif#124-grid9

Ah, I see you are still “ignoring” me. Well, according to your own personal definition of “ignoring” anyway.

Speaking of puppeteering, I once got 9 consecutive unanswered responses from him on Jon’s blog.

I expect that is a record even you will be unable to match.

Ah, Greg G is making stuff up again. Are you still changing Hayek quotes to support your statist views, Greg G?

Nine!? Oh wow. That’s going to be hard to match. You may have some puppeteering skills I haven’t yet mastered, for example It’s not yet clear to me which string elicits the “changing Hayek quote” response that we’ve just observed.

That’s an easy one. Almost any of my comments elicit that response.

No. Just the ones where you are prevaricating.

Your vocabulary word for today, Troll Puppet, is “prevaricating”. When I pull this orange string, you are to write a sentence with the word “prevaricating” in it.

Can you remember that for at least 25 minutes? I’ll be testing soon.

What is your opinion of public schools?

It appears your strings are tangled, Troll Puppet, that’s not the response I expected.

That’s because of your limited education.

At least I remember where I went to school. You can’t even remember whether it was public or private.

We’ll be moving on, Troll Puppet. See if you can keep up.

Are you still claiming that people who went to public school are unable to think critically? Because you are the best evidence supporting your contention.

I’m sure you will be regaling us all with your boring, pompous comments. Well, that is, after you claim you won’t be commenting anymore.

It’s even more impressive if you calculate the emissions on per capita basis. The US pop has grown with app 70 million people / 25% since 1992.

You’re right. I just updated my calculations, and adjusted for US population, C02 per capita last year was the lowest since 1959!

You should post the graph and please also include a graph for the eurozone/china etc

“You’re right. I just updated my calculations, and adjusted for US population, C02 per capita last year was the lowest since 1959!”

Folks, that is astounding, especially considering the population is almost twice that of 1959 America.

In particular given a couple of other changes, family size has shrunk since 1959, we have far more dishwashers and the like than 1959 AC is far more ubiquitous than in 1959, more cars per capita than in 1959. Of course one thing is AC efficiency has increased (the bigger the outside unit the more efficient for example). Furnaces have moved from 70% efficiency to 80 to 90%.

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