Independent Guestatorial: Snake Oil

You, sir, are the scion of an ancestral procession of idiots stretching back to the Missing Link. Mark Twain’s letter to a snake oil peddler.

The 1973 OPEC oil embargo, the result of delivering U.S. weapons to Israel that ended in a total mess for the Egyptian Army, lasted only six months. The fear of running out of oil has been used repeatedly to justify wars and aggression. It is now used as a diversion from the threat of extinction. Building walls and keeping people away pretending to make better deals are false solutions, denying reality. No one is buying it.

We have all the energy we need and a bright future

Our sources of energy come from the Sun, wind, rain, fossil fuels, uranium, and hydrogen. The core sources are Sun, uranium and hydrogen. God gave us all we need. Every hour the Sun beams onto Earth more than enough energy to satisfy our global energy needs for an entire year. Albert Einstein found a way to capture sunlight, the birth of solar power, something trees and vegetation have always done. Nuclear power from uranium is unsafe. Hydrogen fuel cells are highly efficient with no emissions. The Toyota Mirai is the first hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle. Mirai is the name for “future” in Japanese.

America’s First Energy Plan, “We must take advantage of the estimated $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves” is not the solution to our energy needs.

The oil industry uses words with a peculiar meaning. Natural gas, for example, suggests something pure, not cow farts. By 2030, California dairy farmers must cut cow emissions to 40 percent below 2013 levels. To scientists, natural gas is a deadly greenhouse gas known as methane.

What exactly are untapped oil reserves?

This is a great question, which makes me wonder who gets the $50 trillion and when? Bigly shale-oil “reserves” are alternative facts. They are not like the gasoline in your car to make sure you have time to fill-up when the red light comes on. The gas reserve in your car is real.

If your grandparents are alive and made a fortune on oil and gas, all you have is whatever you make per month. You can’t get a $1 million loan with a picture of your folks. No one knows where and how much they have, who is going to get it, or when. If they have a pet, you may be out of luck. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch, don’t invest on shale oil.

Solar reserves are real and the sun shines every day. War, famine, epidemics, droughts, floods, and rising tides from man-made climate change, are deadly.

Where does the White House get facts?

Some come from the U.S. Geological Survey a federal agency with a $1.2 billion budget for 2017. Everyone knows how the money flows and big numbers are best. Estimating shale oil reserves is like snake oil. No one knows what is 20,000 feet below or how to get it out. Shale plays, like the Bakken in North Dakota, are not oil fields. Each shale formation and fracking method is unique; reserves are alternative facts!

Why is shale oil a waste of money?

If you tried the drinking straw experiment mentioned last week, you know it takes more energy to drink a glass of water with 10 straws end to end (a ten-foot straw) than the water in the glass. Finding oil in 1921 was very difficult, most holes were dry, but some found wooden chests full of $100 bills. The treasure chests are gone. Today, you can go to a 100-acre dairy farm, where USGS says the Tooth Fairy spread $1 million in pennies. Would you pick up the treasure?

Choosing our future

“A brighter future depends on energy policies that stimulate our economy, ensure our security, and protect our health. Under the Trump Administration’s energy policies, that future can become a reality.” Snake Oil!

Solar and wind are available today, with no pipelines, storage facilities, earthquakes, cancers or carbon emissions.

Dr. Luis Contreras