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Gas Drillers Tap Coal Beds
USA TODAY ^ | Friday, July 5, 2002 | George Hager

Posted on 07/05/2002 7:58:31 AM PDT by BOBTHENAILER

Edited on 04/13/2004 1:39:42 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

POWDER RIVER BASIN, Wyoming - Eight years ago, Duane Zavadil was driving through this vast prehistoric basin in northeastern Wyoming hunting for natural gas prospects, when his boss looked out the car window and wondered out loud, "What are those little boxes?"


(Excerpt) Read more at usatoday.com ...


TOPICS: Breaking News; Front Page News
KEYWORDS: energy; energylist; enviralists; environmentalists; montanasenate; nimby
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To: RonF
"These issues shouldn't be dismissed out of hand simply because of the people who raised them."

We have been fighting these enviro-nazis for a long time, padnuh!
I'm to the point that if they say it, it's bullsh*t!

I'm in the business, and I can't see how these little wells are going to have that much impact on our gas needs. That, however, is irrelevant.
Whatever we can get, wherever we can find it, and however we can produce it, we must have more natural gas production.

81 posted on 07/06/2002 8:18:28 AM PDT by COB1
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To: BOBTHENAILER
Baucus is a dangerous demagogue & mindless troglodite.

It is simply unreasonable ignorance, earth worship (as in a pagan Gaia religion), & Al-Gorian superstition, or obsequious, fawning obeisance to the radical marxist enviro-wackos that would make Baucus take sucha scientifically reactionary, ignorant and backward psotion against Coal Bed Methane exploration and development.

These are generally the very same enviro-wackos whose dangerously irresponsible oppostion to prudent forest thinning has resulted in the record runaway fires in the West the last two summers & the lsoos of many millions of dolars of property!

82 posted on 07/06/2002 9:18:55 AM PDT by FReethesheeples
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To: RonF
Baucus is a dangerous demagogue & mindless troglydite.

It is simply unreasonable ignorance, earth worship (as in a pagan Gaia religion), & Al-Gorian superstition, or obsequious, fawning obeisance to the radical marxist enviro-wackos that would make Baucus take such a scientifically reactionary, ignorant and backward position against Coal Bed Methane exploration and development.

The water produced form many of our CBM well is actually measurably cleaner than "potable" (drinkable) water.

Unfortunately facts don't faze dotrinaire marxist e-wackos, whose emotional and/or cynically sinister anti-private-property & anti-private enterprise, often anti-human, and often anti-American political agenda utterly eclipses scientific, economic, and engineering data.

These are generally the very same enviro-wackos whose dangerously irresponsible opposition to prudent forest thinning has resulted in the record runaway fires in the West the last two summers & the loss of many millions of dollars of property!

83 posted on 07/06/2002 9:26:45 AM PDT by FReethesheeples
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To: Salgak
That might work in the summer, but I've seen -54F weather in the Powder River basin in winter.

Nah. Just filter it, bottle it, slap a label with some French sounding name on it and sell it in convenience stores....in California.

84 posted on 07/06/2002 9:40:43 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe
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To: BOBTHENAILER
We did CBM exploration drilling in the Powder River Basin early on, before it was an economic success. thats where my coments on the cleanliness of the produced water came from. In spite of such measurable cleanlisnes, we were subject to some sub-optimal regualtions, which precluded simply putting the clean water on the land.

(We wouldn't want to upset the ecosystem by replacing a few hundred acres sagebrush of the tens of millions of acres of existing sagebrush with something which could use more water and make the Wyoming wasteland greener!)

(Pioneers in exploaratin as in other firelds usually, or most often, end up with arrows in their extreme lower posteriors and we were no exception. Later drilling activity yeilded rewards for less risk.)

While my company no longer has any financial vested interest in Wyoming, (we sold our Powder River and other production from several horizons in Wyoming and several other states) many kudos for your contributions, comments, post and article!We are battling a vast amount of willful ignorance and a sinister leftist and extremist political agenda.

85 posted on 07/06/2002 9:42:56 AM PDT by FReethesheeples
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To: CedarDave
There you go. Run a pipeline and make it a double barrel. Sell the water and the gas.
86 posted on 07/06/2002 9:46:25 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe
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To: MonroeDNA
Keep in mind that Da$$hole is from South Dakota, (the Powder River Basin ends at the Black Hills on one end) where they make money the old fashioned way. Gambling.

Can't have a conservative, pistol packin' state like Wyoming doing so well just across the line.

Funny he didn't complain about Oil wells drilled up by the North Dakota line.

Watch out, they'll run that idiot as Hillary's veep candidate yet.

87 posted on 07/06/2002 9:55:27 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe
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To: FReethesheeples; COB1
Thank you for your knowledgable contributions on this very important issue.

BTTT!

88 posted on 07/06/2002 9:56:18 AM PDT by EternalVigilance
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To: Smokin' Joe
Watch out, they'll run that idiot as Hillary's veep candidate yet.

Please, throw us in that briar patch! ;-)

EV in SD

89 posted on 07/06/2002 9:58:18 AM PDT by EternalVigilance
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To: EternalVigilance
Thank YOU!
90 posted on 07/06/2002 9:59:52 AM PDT by FReethesheeples
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To: EternalVigilance
God No!

I'm afraid that the next time the "fix" is in, it'll work, not just be a close call.

Besides, I couldn't stand a year of media saturation telling us how wonderful Hitlery is. >GAG! Ack! Retch...

91 posted on 07/06/2002 10:01:58 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe
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To: Smokin' Joe
...I couldn't stand a year of media saturation telling us how wonderful Hitlery is. >GAG! Ack! Retch...

I know, I know...but the upside is that a ticket like that would in all liklihood have about 80% of the electorate retching along with us! ;-)

Personally, I hope he runs for reelection here in SD, so we can crush him fair and square.

EV

92 posted on 07/06/2002 10:19:27 AM PDT by EternalVigilance
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To: EternalVigilance
Kick butt! I wish we could get rid of our socialists on the North side of the State line.
93 posted on 07/06/2002 10:47:52 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe
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To: Smokin' Joe
Maybe we can work together to cleanse the whole of the northern Plains of these pseudo-populist pretenders.

We have a target-rich environment in our region presently. As you know, this year the targets are:

Baucus - MT
Johnson - SD
Wellstone - MN
Harkin - IA

Socialists to a man...and I'm being generous...

EV

94 posted on 07/06/2002 11:03:32 AM PDT by EternalVigilance
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To: EternalVigilance; RonF
To my knowedge, the term "agriculture" includes not only waving fields of grain, but also raising livestock. I think the latter is a major activity in the area being discussed here.
Two things:
"raising livestock" means "growing grass", and you need some unsalty water to do that (I'm not a rancher, I don't even play one on TV).

People who raise cattle will actually pay for a block of salt to throw on the ground for the cows. Water which is potable but slightly salty for irrigation sounds like a cow's idea of soda pop. Australia has some artesian wells (or did way back when I was in grade school) which were exactly that way, and the use of it for cattle was significant enough to get a mention in a Pennsylvania geography book.

Now if you could get the cow to pee into a desalination plant, you'd really be ahead of the game!

Why of course it is...but don't you think the threat posed by these wells to cattle on this rangeland (range that requires acres and acres to support one cow-calf unit) is vastly overstated by those who are blocking the development of this resource...a resource that is critical to our national security for the next generation or so?

By the way, that same cow-calf unit can be produced using dollar fifty Iowa corn grown on a fraction of one acre. More and more of that corn ground is being used to produce ethanol as a gasoline supplement. Of course the same vehicles being fueled by that blend would run on natural gas with no problem

. . . or if you wanted style points you could convert the natural gas to methyl alchohol, and mix it with gasoline. Another way of getting "gasahol" . . .

but of course the real style points are for inefficiency--inflating the cost of production with make-work . . .


95 posted on 07/06/2002 11:28:30 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
You missed my point.

I was simply highlighting the fact that it is far more cost effective to make use of the readily available natural gas in the Powder River Basin than it is to convert corn into ethanol instead of feeding it to livestock.

Cars set up to do so run just dandy on natural gas alone.

96 posted on 07/06/2002 11:37:02 AM PDT by EternalVigilance
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To: hinckley buzzard
Those out on the coastal margins think the world is a truck farm. They need to see more of the real world.
Really! I live on Long Island ('bout as "coastal margin" as you want to be, and not be in a boat). And I think of NY City as a hotbed of "cosmopolitan provincialism". Cosmopolitan, yes--they rub elbows with people from all over. But provincial, in the sense that so many of them give the impression that they have never been 20 miles west of the Hudson River.

The trouble is, they mostly weren't born in Oklahoma, so they don't ever drive for 3 days to get back home. Naturally their perspective is distorted. People just aren't born with a sense of perspective about distances, or indeed quantities in general. Folks in NYC probably compare ANWR to Central Park. That's wrong both ways--ANWR is vastly larger on the one hand, and it's tiny in the context of Alaska (never mind Canada, why doesn't Canadian open space count?!) on the other.

So I think drilling in ANWR is about like putting another statue in Central Park. No big deal, given a good reason.


97 posted on 07/06/2002 11:58:26 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion
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To: EternalVigilance
Cars set up to do so run just dandy on natural gas alone.
Yes, but farmers don't get paid when that happens--what's the fun of that? </sarcasm>

(I seriously doubt that I actually missed any part of your excellent point. It was so good I think I copied the whole thing!).


98 posted on 07/06/2002 12:04:00 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
Ah...the misunderstanding was mine, then!

Have a great day...and let's all keep these very important threads BUMPED to the top!
99 posted on 07/06/2002 12:33:17 PM PDT by EternalVigilance
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To: Grampa Dave
Of course one only has to ask the simple question: Who benefits
There is another question, equally simple, which we are, despite ourselves, too charitable to like to think of:
Who hurts who?

We are normally too charitable to attribute the motive of sheer shadenfreude to our critics. But some of these people are exactly the sort whom the shoe would fit . . . a certain freshman senator with 8 years of national exposure comes to mind.


100 posted on 07/06/2002 1:45:27 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion
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