Free Republic

Wednesday marked the four-year anniversary of the Capitol Inauguration Day riots.That day, cars were set ablaze, rioters blocked a bridge. There were well more than 200 arrests and dozens of injuries.Violence had taken a few months to get to Washington, but the country had been watching as masked wanna-be revolutionaries terrorized the elderly and young women at Trump rallies and Republican and conservative events across the states.America’s corporate leaders didn’t join the riots, but they might as well have. President Donald Trump and his administration weren’t like any previous administration: They were different. They were dangerous. They needed to be...

Crude oil production from U.S. wells is poised to approach a 42-year record next year as drillers ignore the recent decline in price pointing them in the opposite direction. U.S. energy producers plan to pump more crude in 2015 as declining equipment costs and enhanced drilling techniques more than offset the collapse in oil markets, said Troy Eckard, whose Eckard Global owns stakes in more than 260 North Dakota shale wells. Oil companies, while trimming 2015 budgets to cope with the lowest crude prices in five years, are also shifting their focus to their most-prolific, lowest-cost fields, which means extracting...

Colorado's growth in crude oil reserves ranked third behind North Dakota and Texas in the latest survey of the amount of oil buried in fields across the United States, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Nationally, crude oil reserves — oil that can be pumped from the ground under current economic conditions using existing technology — grew by 9 percent, or 3.1 billion barrels, in 2013 compared to 2012, the federal agency said. It's the fifth year in a row the U.S. oil reserves have grown, the EIA said, evidence that the proliferation of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing...

America’s carbon-dioxide emissions are actually falling. In fact, they have not been this low since 1992. And while no single factor can account for the entire shift, much of the credit goes to something environmentalists often detest: hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Among power sources, the worst source of CO2 emissions by far is coal. Natural gas generates half the CO2 per kilowatt-hour, and in the past few years natural gas has displaced coal to a remarkable degree. This year gas-fired electricity generation equaled coal-fired generation for the first time. According to the Energy Information Administration, that trend will continue as...

Exxon Mobil Corp. is studying the possibility of exporting natural gas from the U.S. Gulf Coast and Canada as new shale drilling has unlocked enough natural-gas reserves to meet domestic demand for years to come and allow exports, Chief Executive Rex Tillerson said Wednesday. Exports of natural gas will create jobs, increase tax revenues and help the U.S. trade balance, Mr. Tillerson said at the company's shareholder meeting in Dallas. Exxon Mobil, the world's largest publicly traded oil company and the largest U.S. natural-gas producer, recently has said it was analyzing exports from domestically produced natural gas. Mr. Tillerson's remarks...

Environmentalists have taken aim at a common natural gas extraction technique called Hydraulic Fracturing, or Fracking. The enviros claim that Fracking will contaminate ground water or even cause earthquakes because it involves injecting water, sand, and some chemicals into bedrock to increase natural gas supplies. Not only are these claims specious (Fracking occurs well below the water table), the enviros are revisiting a long history of hypocrisy since the only way to obtain their renewable energy goal is through Fracking. States like Wyoming and Texas are now requiring thorough disclosure of Fracking chemicals. France has banned the practice outright. Agitprop...

People across Arkansas felt the earth move at about 11:00 p.m. Sunday, as a roughly 4.7-magnitude earthquake struck near Greenbriar. It's the biggest earthquake yet to hit the north-central part of the state, as part of what’s become known as the “Guy Swarm.” The quake was felt as far away as Memphis, but at 1:00 a.m., no injuries had been reported. Scott Ausbrook with the U.S. Geological Survey says the state hasn’t seen a temblor of this size since 1976. Geologists are still looking at whether the recent series of quakes could be related to the natural gas drilling in...

A new drilling technique is opening up vast fields of previously out-of-reach oil in the western United States, helping reverse a two-decade decline in domestic production of crude. Companies are investing billions of dollars to get at oil deposits scattered across North Dakota, Colorado, Texas and California. By 2015, oil executives and analysts say, the new fields could yield as much as 2 million barrels of oil a day — more than the entire Gulf of Mexico produces now. This new drilling is expected to raise U.S. production by at least 20 percent over the next five years. And within...

Gov. David A. Paterson of New York on Saturday vetoed legislation intended to curtail natural gas development using the technique called hydraulic fracturing until a closer review of its effects can be undertaken. Instead, the governor issued an executive order instituting a moratorium that extends until July 1, 2011 — beyond the date specified in the legislation — and that more narrowly defines the types of drilling to be restricted. “This legislation, which was well intentioned, would have a serious impact on our state if signed into law,” Mr. Paterson said in a prepared statement. “Enacting this legislation would put...

Energy Policy: New York's governor wants to tap into a shale formation that can supply the entire U.S. with natural gas for 65 years. Will NIMBY environmentalists let him stimulate New York's and America's energy economy?Last week, David Patterson released a draft report of his Energy Planning Board that does something Democrats are loath to do: It proposes developing a domestic energy resource — the huge amounts of natural gas trapped in the Marcellus Shale formation. New York produces 5% of its natural gas in-state and imports more than 95% from the Gulf Coast and Canada. The Marcellus Shale stretches...

A continuation of an irregular series of geological features in state parks: this one is Elephant Rocks State Park in Missouri. Please read my notes after the final image. Elephant Rocks State Park General Information Park Map Click for full-size. Click for full-size. Same view, different season This last image comes from a revelatory Web site, by Scott Haefner: Scott Haefner photographyHe has a huge variety of photographs (most of which could be ordered as prints), and you have GOT to see his Bubble 360 panoramas! Links to the panoramas are on the home page. To get to images organized...

Democratic Party Divided on IraqFriday July 7, 4:58 PM Intent on seizing control of Congress, Democrats want to keep the focus on President Bush's missteps in Iraq. Yet the war is fracturing the party in a handful of House and Senate races. Senate primary fights in Connecticut and Washington state as well as a few House contests pit the party's liberal wing _ proponents of candidates who want an immediate end to the conflict _ against moderates favored by Democratic leaders in Washington. Arguably the most high-profile and contentious case is Connecticut, where three-term Sen. Joe Lieberman is under siege...