Hear Energy Expert Dr. Daniel Fine on the I Spy Radio program talking energy speculation, Shale Gas&Oil,Elections 2012

But a much larger puzzle is America’s energy resources and our energy policy. We talk with Dr. Daniel Fine, an associate with the New Mexico Center for Energy to get a handle on all of this.

What role do speculators have in the oil prices? Is it all just more of the “blame game” by Obama? But what role does he have in it?

And if Republicans are secretly hoping high gas prices might hurt Obama’s re-election campaign, find out why they may be in for a big surprise.

http://www.gripnw.com/Audio/iSpyShow_04142012_DrFine-AmericasEnergy.mp3

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Resources & Links from the Show
Below are links to our guest’s websites, articles, and other information mentioned on the show or for more information.

Guest & Links mentions on the show

• Dr. Fine’s article on the effect of oil speculators
• Another great article (not mentioned on the show): America’s Energy Disaster from the National Review Online
• Dr. Daniel Fine is a Research Associate at the Mining and Minerals Resources Institute, MIT. Dr. Fine is also a current Policy Adviser on Non-Conventional Oil and Gas. He is co-editor of Resource War in 3-D: Dependence, Diplomacy and Defense, and has contributed to Business Week, the Engineering and Mining Journal and the Washington Times. Dr. Fine participated in the Atlantic Council Workshop on Central Asian Policy and the Hudson Institute Russia-United States Relations Project. He has given testimony on strategic natural resources before the U.S. Senate Committees on Foreign Affairs and the Energy and Natural Resources. Dr. Fine was a member of the Domestic Energy Production Issue Team of the Center For The Study Of The Presidency and Congress “Strengthening America’s Future Initiative.” He has participated as a panelist on energy public policy at the Rocky Mountain Global New Energy Summit.
  

What do money markets, antiques, gold, corn, wheat, and stocks in companies like Google or Apple have in common? They?re bought by speculators.

And yet speculators, especially in oil, have become the bogeyman of economics. On tomorrow?s I Spy Radio Show (11-noon, kykn.com), we talk with Dr. Daniel Fine about America?s energy resources and energy policy. What role do speculators have in the price of oil?

And find out why those who think high gas prices might hurt Obama?s re-election may be in for a big surprise.

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Dr. Daniel I. Fine works with the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy. He is a longtime research associate at the Mining and Minerals Resources Institute, MIT. Fine is also a policy adviser on nonconventional oil and gas. He is co-editor of Resource War in 3-D: Dependence, Diplomacy and Defense, and has contributed to Business Week, the Engineering and Mining Journal and the Washington Times. Fine has testified on strategic natural resources before the U.S. Senate committees on Foreign Affairs and Energy and Natural Resources. In this speech, he discusses ?Shale Gas Wars: From Pennsylvania to North Carolina.?

Read Energy expert Dr. Daniel Fine Op-Ed “Potential bounty for North Carolina” on Shale Gas in North Carolina

News & Observer Raleigh, NC March 21 2012

Dr. Daniel Fine writes “Nearly 40 years ago, when the first oil price shock from the Middle East and OPEC disrupted the American economy, North Carolina and Appalachia briefly became an oil and gas frontier. Following geological investigations, Chevron drilled an exploratory well in the Deep River Basin beneath Lee County, N.C. Oil was discovered at 5,000 feet, but it contained excessive paraffin and Chevron plugged the well.” please read on and click this link to the original article—> http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/03/21/1947986/potential-bounty-for-north-carolina.html

Dr. Daniel I. Fine works with the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy. He is a longtime research associate at the Mining and Minerals Resources Institute, MIT. Fine is also a policy adviser on nonconventional oil and gas. He is co-editor of Resource War in 3-D: Dependence, Diplomacy and Defense, and has contributed to Business Week, the Engineering and Mining Journal and the Washington Times. Fine has testified on strategic natural resources before the U.S. Senate committees on Foreign Affairs and Energy and Natural Resources. In this speech, he discusses “Shale Gas Wars: From Pennsylvania to North Carolina.”

Dr. Daniel Fine of the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy discusses North Carolina’s approach to shale gas and hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” Fine offered these comments during a Feb. 27, 2012, presentation to the John Locke Foundation’s Shafesbury Society. Video courtesy of CarolinaJournal.tv. Watch full-length video of JLF events here:

Dr. Daniel Fine discusses North Carolina’s approach to shale gas and hydraulic fracturing and takes on the enviromentalists (two minutes)—
http://youtu.be/4Lbn9diK1PA
The full one hour video can be seen here–>”North Carolina?s approach to natural gas fracking” —>http://lockerroom.johnlocke.org/2012/02/27/north-carolinas-approach-to-natural-gas-fracking/

Dr. Daniel I. Fine works with the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy. He is a longtime research associate at the Mining and Minerals Resources Institute, MIT. Fine is also a policy adviser on nonconventional oil and gas. He is co-editor of Resource War in 3-D: Dependence, Diplomacy and Defense, and has contributed to Business Week, the Engineering and Mining Journal and the Washington Times. Fine has testified on strategic natural resources before the U.S. Senate committees on Foreign Affairs and Energy and Natural Resources. In this speech, he discusses “Shale Gas Wars: From Pennsylvania to North Carolina.”

The John Locke Foundation and the Jesse Helms Center
Cordially invites you to

a meeting of the Shaftesbury Society

with our special guest

Dr. Daniel I. Fine

- Research Associate – Mining and Minerals Resources Institute, MIT

“Shale Gas Wars: From Pennsylvania to North Carolina.”

Monday, February 27, 2012
12:00 pm Noon

John Locke Foundation, 200 W. Morgan Street, Raleigh, NC 27601

Price: $10.00

Dr. Daniel Fine is a Research Associate at the Mining and Minerals Resources Institute, MIT. Dr. Fine is also a current Policy Adviser on Non-Conventional Oil and Gas. He is co-editor of Resource War in 3-D: Dependence, Diplomacy and Defense, and has contributed to Business Week, the Engineering and Mining Journal and the Washington Times. Dr. Fine participated in the Atlantic Council Workshop on Central Asian Policy and the Hudson Institute Russia-United States Relations Project. He has given testimony on strategic natural resources before the U.S. Senate Committees on Foreign Affairs and the Energy and Natural Resources. Dr. Fine was a member of the Domestic Energy Production Issue Team of the Center For The Study Of The Presidency and Congress “Strengthening America’s Future Initiative.” He has participated as a panelist on energy public policy at the Rocky Mountain Global New Energy Summit.

Shaftesbury Luncheon talks are free and open to the public. An optional lunch is available for purchase at the event, or participants may brown bag a lunch if they choose.

Purchase Tickets for this Event Online

http://www.johnlocke.org/events/event.html?id=971

Sorry, but we respect the intellectual works of others here at RedState. That means we don’t cut and paste entire articles from either traditional or new media sources 1) because it is copyright infringement, and 2) because we expect others to respect our rights to original material published at RedState.

Now, I am not a lawyer and I’m certainly no expert on copyright law, but my understanding of “fair use” is this: it is permissible to quote limited quantities of material from another source, preferably with a link and always with attribution. “Limited quantities” generally means three (3) paragraphs or so. The diarist is expected to analyze, comment, or otherwise amplify on the quoted material.

Material that you own and publish elsewhere should not be excerpted here, but published in full. It is acceptable to link to your personal blog in acknowledging the cross-link.

Oh, and here’s the link to the Western Gas Fields article, from the Rocket-Courier in Wyalusing, PA.

TOWANDA – While Bradford County has experienced extensive gas drilling for a few years, what will it be like after the drilling has gone on for decades?

The three Bradford County commissioners and other local officials had a chance to get a sense of what could happen when they traveled last week to participate in a two-day conference in Lea County, N.M.

Lea County’s economy had been based for decades on natural gas production, although in the last decade its economy has diversified to include other forms of energy, such as nuclear, solar, and wind, the Bradford County commissioners said.

The conference, which was titled “Shale Gas & Conventional Gas: From Pennsylvania to New Mexico,” discussed the issues surrounding the development of shale gas using Lea County, N.M., and Bradford County, Pa., as case studies, according to the Economic Development Corporation of Lea County, which co-sponsored the conference.

Lea County’s population is about the same size as Bradford County’s, but its economy is dependent solely on energy production, Bradford County Commissioner Daryl Miller said.

The Bradford County commissioners discussed the trip at the commissioners’ meeting on Thursday, and both commissioners Doug McLinko and Mark Smith said it was worthwhile to travel to New Mexico.

McLinko said the trip reinforced for him the belief that Bradford County needs to do more to be ready to take advantage of opportunities to bring long-term jobs to the county, such as the planned Moxie Energy gas-fired electric power plant in Asylum Township. The Moxie Energy plant will bring a significant number of long-term jobs to the county, he said.

“They (Lea County officials) are very aggressive with their (economic) development (efforts)” to keep and attract long-term jobs, he said, adding that Lea County needed to broaden the base of their economy so that they were not tied to the ups and downs of the natural gas industry.

Among the measures that Lea County has taken are to purchase and lease thousands of acres of land, and Lea County is bringing infrastructure to that land, such as municipal water and electrical service, in an effort to attract industry to locate on the property, McLinko said. By controlling those thousands of acres of land, Lea County can offer attractive terms to the businesses that consider moving there, said Bradford County Economic Development Manager Lauren Hotaling, who also attended the conference.

McLinko said he does not want Bradford County to buy or lease land to attract businesses. But he said that townships, boroughs, and private property owners in Bradford County need to take steps to make sure there is land available for businesses or industry to move to, and that that land is ready with the infrastructure they need, such as municipal water and sewer, as well as any zoning provisions.

“When you get an opportunity for development, you can’t lag behind, because we are in competition with other states,” he said.

However, Hotaling said one problem with attracting businesses and industry to Bradford County is that there is a limited area in the county that has the kind of infrastructure that many large businesses are looking for, such as municipal water and municipal sewer.

And in the locations where municipal water and sewer exists or will soon exist, such as Route 6 in Wysox Township, the land is expensive to buy, she said.

There is even a lack of natural gas distribution lines in Bradford County that could supply these large businesses, she said.

Just as is the case in Bradford County, hotels in Lea County are used by workers in the energy extraction industry, namely gas and oil drilling, Hotaling said.

But Lea County has secured a use for its hotels which will buffer them against the ups and downs in gas and oil drilling. Specifically, Lea County has become a training center for Homeland Security, she said. The training has resulted in the construction of three or four additional hotels in Lea County, she said.

Hotaling also said that New Mexico’s state budget is heavily dependant on revenue from the gas and oil industry.

The gas and oil industry provides over 26 percent of New Mexico’s state funds, she said.

New Mexico has a state severance tax on gas and oil, she said. New Mexico also gets a significant amount of revenue from lease bonuses and royalties on state-owned land, she said.

Among the local officials who traveled to the conference were state Rep. Tina Pickett, Progress Authority Executive Director Tony Ventello, and Mark Madden of Penn State Cooperative Extension.

Bradford County paid the airfare to the conference for the three Bradford County commissioners, according to Bradford County Fiscal Director Joan Sanderson.

The Progress Authority paid for lodging and meals for the three Bradford County commissioners while they were in New Mexico, Hotaling said.

James Loewenstein can be reached at (570) 265-1633; or email: jloewenstein@thedailyreview.com.

SOCORRO, N.M. January 10, 2012 – As oil companies deploy hundreds of wells in northeast Pennsylvania to tap into the lucrative “shale gas” deposits, many are weighing the environmental impacts, the economic outlook and the regulatory climate related to the latest bonanza in domestic natural gas production.

Now, the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy – a research wing of New Mexico Tech – is taking the lead in framing the debate on these hot-button issues. The Center and the Economic Development Corporation of Lea County (N.M.) are hosting a conference on these controversial and lucrative shale gas deposits that dot North America.

“Shale Gas and Conventional Gas: From Pennsylvania to New Mexico” is a two-day conference that features experts from the industry, government, independent researchers and state officials from Pennsylvania and New Mexico. The event is Thursday and Friday, Jan. 12 and 13, at the Lea County Event Center in Hobbs, N.M. The Center for Energy Policy also is located in Hobbs.

The presence of large deposits of shale gas in the U.S. has led to the rise of debate about the environmental impact of production, with conflicting reports about the impact of production and use of shale gas.

Canada has taken the lead in production of shale gas, with production in Alberta proving to be lucrative. Shale gas production in the United States is expanding quickly in Pennsylvania, but has been met with resistance from environmentalists and regulatory agencies.

“Shale gas is a very important topic nationally and internationally as we tap into the shale gas resources, which will create vast amount of energy for the United States,” said Dr. Van Romero, Vice President of Research at New Mexico Tech. “This conference brings together experts to discuss the finer points of technological advancements, production and potential risks involved.”

Shale gas production has benefited from the advancement of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which has become a controversial method of extracting natural gas from shale formations.

The opening panel event will feature experts discussing both horizontal drilling and the process and consequences of fracking – which involves injecting water into shale formations to push oil toward production wells.

Conference organizer Dr. Daniel Fine – director of the N.M. Center for Energy Policy – said Pennsylvania is on the vanguard of the current bonanza in shale gas production.

“Technical innovations from 1992 to the present have allowed us to develop the capability of extracting gas from these hard rock formations,” Fine said. “Hydro-fracturing and horizontal drilling represent a whole new evolution.”

“Fracking is controversial and it’s important to have a good scientific basis to understand it,” Romero said. “The fear is that fracking will contaminate groundwater as we liberate natural gas from deep under the surface. We need to do a good job from a scientific and engineering basis as we proceed with development of these formations.”

Fine said that just 10 years ago federal experts predicted a natural gas shortage in the United States. Now, with new the new technology, the United States has such a glut in natural gas that prices have plummeted.

One of the largest deposits of shale gas – the Marcellus shale – rests under Pennsylvania. According to a National Geographic report, Marcellus shale holds between 50 trillion cubic feet (TCF) and 500 TCF of natural gas. At the low end, that represents twice the natural gas in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay. Given high estimates, the Marcellus reserves would be the second largest in the world. Other large deposits are known to exist in Illinois, Texas and Wyoming.

Bradford County in northeast Pennsylvania issued permits for more than 300 new wells in 2011 alone, Fine said. Several officials from Bradford County – and neighboring counties in Pennsylvania – will be speaking and attending the conference.

Fine said an ongoing and heated debate in Pennsylvania the state legislatures proposal to institute a severance tax on natural gas. A key point of the debate is how the state and the counties will share the revenue.

“Lea County (New Mexico) is a model on how to manage natural resources,” Fine said. “For three generations, Lea County has developed a model on how to manage natural gas and oil production and how to use the revenues for local economic development.”

The conference’s opening session features a panel discussion covering the basics of shale gas. Ron Broadhead, senior petroleum geologist at the Bureau and the state’s leading expert on oil-and-gas recovery, will lead the discussion. Broadhead and two industry leaders will explain the technologies needed to recover shale gas, prospects for recovery in the continental United States and potential strategies for production.

The Thursday afternoon session will focus on regulation and opposition to shale gas development. Fine and Dr. Van Romero, vice president of research at New Mexico Tech, will lead the panel, along with Alan Eichler of the Pennsylvania Environment Department and Jamie Bailey of the state of New Mexico.

Fine said the main debate over fracking relates to federal regulations. The sole federal statute that relates to the practice is the Safe Drinking Water Act of the 1970s. Most states have regulations specific to fracking, but the federal government has none.

The Friday morning session will delve deeper into the issues related to shale gas recovery. The panel will feature eight experts from Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Chesapeake Energy, a leading onshore developer of unconventional oil and natural gas plays.

U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce will deliver the keynote speech at Thursday’s luncheon. Pearce will discuss the potential economic impact and job outlook for the natural gas industry if shale gas is fully developed. Fine said preliminary studies tout 1.9 million additional jobs in natural gas by 2025.

N.M. Lt. Gov. John Sanchez and Pennsylvania Rep. Tina Pickett will provide Friday’s keynote talks. They will discuss the economic impact that shale gas could have on their respective states.

The event is co-sponsored by New Mexico Tech and the Economic Development Council of Lea County, led by president and CEO Lisa Hardison.

– NMT –

By Thomas Guengerich/New Mexico Tech

http://www.nmt.edu/nmt-news/336-2011/4286-energy-conference-focuses-on-shale-gas-hot-button-issues

Nuclear Horizon

An atomic economy is booming in New Mexico.

On April 27, Greg Mello–a tall, intense man whose natural state is vague dishevelment–was in court, watching his witness annihilate (at least in Mello’s view) the US Department of Energy’s case.

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Mello is the Harvard-educated co-founder and executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group, a nuclear disarmament advocacy organization based in Albuquerque, but with a concerted focus on the activities of Los Alamos National Laboratory. Last year, LASG sued to stop the construction of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) project, a new facility at LANL designed to process–and possibly produce–plutonium-based nuclear warheads.

On this particular Wednesday, Mello’s lawyer had called Frank von Hippel, a nuclear physicist and Princeton professor, to testify against the facility–essentially a costly, heavily fortified nuclear warhead processing facility situated over a geologic fault zone (see sidebar: “Price Point”).

In his prepared testimony, Von Hippel argued the need for new warheads “has vanished”; the earthquake hazard is now “much larger” than previously thought; the last full environmental assessment of the project–completed eight years ago–is insufficient for a project whose cost has swollen from $350 million to more than $3 billion.

All of this, Von Hippel says, amounts to a more fundamental question: Does New Mexico really need to be researching and building new nuclear weapons?

Mello doesn’t think so–but says the political momentum isn’t on his side.

“New Mexico is viewed as a place with a compliant government, where nuclear contractors can get federal money,” Mello explains. “There’s no private sector demand for most of this stuff, and a great deal of it could never be licensed or permitted.”

Even so, the CMRR facility–along with its budget–has expanded virtually unheeded since it was first proposed in 1999.

“It’s terrifying,” Mello says. “It’s frightening for New Mexico, both in itself and because of what it’s not: renewable energy; investment in our housing and building stock, our infrastructure, our schools. A very tiny group of people have captured an outsize amount of attention from a political elite and are setting far too much of our agenda.”

Greg Mello of Los Alamos Study Group is challenging the lab’s new plutonium facility.

Within Santa Fe, Mello’s view is relatively common. At the LASG meetings and study sessions he hosts in the basement of a local church, attendees are routinely knowledgeable to the point of expertise. And in addition to various environmental protection and renewable energy groups, Santa Fe also hosts two other nuclear disarmament organizations, Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety and Nuclear Watch of New Mexico.

Southern New Mexico, though, is a different story. There, lawmakers and academics extol the virtues not only of nuclear research and development, but they also court uranium processing plants and waste disposal facilities with gusto–and, in some cases, financial incentives.

In fact, the morning of Von Hippel’s testimony, a collection of public officials, scientists and executives had gathered in a conference room in Hobbs, some 350 miles south of Santa Fe. They were discussing New Mexico’s future as a focal point for the new nuclear age, in which economies rely increasingly on nuclear power and entire processing industries spring up around the “uranium fuel cycle,” which begins with mining and ends with waste disposal. Every stage of that process can be monetized–and nearly every stage has commercial operations in New Mexico.

“The state currently has a stake in a lot of aspects of this cycle–the mining, the enrichment, the storage,” Mat Lueras, vice president for corporate development at Uranium Resources Inc., a mining outfit that owns 183,000 acres of uranium mineral rights in New Mexico, tells SFR. Because of that, Lueras says, URI has “seen widespread local and state support from New Mexico politicians” for its efforts to restart uranium mining.

To Daniel Fine, a research associate at New Mexico Tech and at the Center for Energy Policy in Hobbs,
such enthusiasm is simply an acknowledgment of the inevitable.

“Nuclear energy, worldwide and in the United States, has a very strong future,” Fine says. “Twenty percent of our electricity is nuclear. There’s potential planning for 50 percent more.”

In Fine’s view, New Mexico’s role in that future remains to be determined. But given what’s already here, and the gradual buildup of a nuclear fuel cycle complex in the state’s southeastern counties, a nuclear future may indeed be unavoidable. Take the beginning of the fuel cycle, for instance.

“New Mexico,” Fine says, “is the Saudi Arabia of uranium.”

For more link to ——->http://sfreporter.com/santafe/article-6070-nuclear-horizon.html