Crunching the numbers

[GIThruster]

I think you misread the piece, Scott. I don't recall any statements about the US becoming the largest exporter. That will remain with Saudi Arabia and if Iraq presses forward as anticipated here, it will be second. The US will only barely be self-sufficient though it will still trade oil in and out of the country. There's a 7% gas export but I would not assume that will happen as there are still plenty of homes using things like electricity and fuel oil for heat. Gas would be better.

The question is, will OBama and the radical environmentalists allow such a trasnformation to occur? I confess I'd like to see this study. Somehow, I think it is based upon some assumptions about future oil leases that USG will never grant while the Dems are in power. Don't count your chickens quite yet. . .but it is good news.

I would note too, that there will be no lack of demand as you're suggesting. China and India will buy up all the oil they can especially when the price drops. It's important to note though, that everyone who believes in Anthropogenic Global Warming (which is still the vast bulk of the scientific community) is going to fight tooth and nail to see these things don't happen because they believe it would doom the planet. When looking at these sorts of things, it's important to note that what's being described cannot happen (US energy independence based on fossile fuels) and at the the same time have the US meet the demands of the Kyoto Protocol. That was signed but never ratified. If it were ratified, none of that oil would be fracked out of the ground because we would not be able to use it.

In short, there are still plenty of ways for people to screw this up and Al Gore will be doing his best.

[ScottL]

I think you misread the piece, Scott. I don't recall any statements about the US becoming the largest exporter. That will remain with Saudi Arabia and if Iraq presses forward as anticipated here, it will be second. The US will only barely be self-sufficient though it will still trade oil in and out of the country. There's a 7% gas export but I would not assume that will happen as there are still plenty of homes using things like electricity and fuel oil for heat. Gas would be better.

The question is, will OBama and the radical environmentalists allow such a trasnformation to occur? I confess I'd like to see this study. Somehow, I think it is based upon some assumptions about future oil leases that USG will never grant while the Dems are in power. Don't count your chickens quite yet. . .but it is good news.

I would note too, that there will be no lack of demand as you're suggesting. China and India will buy up all the oil they can especially when the price drops. It's important to note though, that everyone who believes in Anthropogenic Global Warming (which is still the vast bulk of the scientific community) is going to fight tooth and nail to see these things don't happen because they believe it would doom the planet. When looking at these sorts of things, it's important to note that what's being described cannot happen (US energy independence based on fossile fuels) and at the the same time have the US meet the demands of the Kyoto Protocol. That was signed but never ratified. If it were ratified, none of that oil would be fracked out of the ground because we would not be able to use it.

In short, there are still plenty of ways for people to screw this up and Al Gore will be doing his best.

First, Dems aren't stopping oil surprisingly.

http://economy.money.cnn.com/2012/10/18 ... der-obama/

As noted, the only decline in oil production was a moratorium from the BP spill of 2010. As much as Dems like to say they're green, they've actually voted opposite this position repeatedly in the name of economic stimulation.

and while I may have overstated, they'll definitely ramp up exports of oil:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/ ... IQ20121112

[Joseph Chikva]

Why did you not blow the Roki Tunnel before the Russians used it to invade?

This question is not to me but to our President who is spoiled by the Western propaganda thinking that wars begin when CNN deploys cameras and comes to an end when displaces them (c).
Yes, we had to blow Roki Tunnel and had to have more effective weapons and more ammunitions all the more spending a lot of money for security before the war. As blowing tunnel would only slow invasion. Also we had to support national liberation movements of the North Caucasus. That was not done too. And so on.
Thanks.

[GIThruster]

Scott no offense, but you need to learn how to read a graph. OBama didn't take any action from 2009 to 2010 when he then used the oil spill as an excuse for a moratorium. And pretending oil production during that year was a reflection of his policies is idiotic. That oil production was enabled by leases granted 6-8 years previously, under the Bush administration. How can you possibly think OBama is responsible for anything except the moratorium?

[ScottL]

Scott no offense, but you need to learn how to read a graph. OBama didn't take any action from 2009 to 2010 when he then used the oil spill as an excuse for a moratorium. And pretending oil production during that year was a reflection of his policies is idiotic. That oil production was enabled by leases granted 6-8 years previously, under the Bush administration. How can you possibly think OBama is responsible for anything except the moratorium?

I'm not offended. I fully realize that Obama could've adversely effected oil production at any time but hasn't, so, sometimes inaction is action. What I feel he did was pander to the greens with a lot of rhetoric while completely ignoring it as a non-issue. As a matter of fact, under his watch more permits for drilling and more public land have become available, all easily halted if he so wanted. I think what you have here is a man that panders to different special interest groups to save face, while doing the exact opposite sometimes.I mean hell, Guantanamo is still open last time I checked...

[GIThruster]

I'm not sure its fair to call it pandering. All politicians have a set but varying quantity of political capital they can spend at any given moment, and things like Guantanamo would cost a great deal of capital and create a situation where political capital would be near impossible to gather in the future. It's one thing to cheerlead the troops with "close Guantanamo!" but another thing entirely to try to do it. He did look carefully at it very early on as I recall, but the fallout was devastating because no one has a workable alternative. Permanent incarceration as a prisoner of war is one of the logical outcomes of having an ununiformed, spontaneous civilian army. You don't have these probolems when wars are between states and can be considered ended.

And though this is an aside I'll just note to you, there is no one who likes the idea of permanent POW's in Guantanamo. The problem has ALWAYS been there is no viable alternative. It's easy to complain about a problem noone likes. It's hard to find a solution when there is none to be had. I doubt those guys in Guantanamo will ever be released and if they are, you can darn well expect them to attack US interests within a year of such release. And of course we know the lawyers for POW's notion was always broken.

But that aside, I was under the impression that O'Bama has not been granting record numbers of drilling licenses. Rather, his "moratorium" put the stops on a dozen different projects that were in the works and it has still not been lifted. Likewise, stopping the Keytstone pipeline is pretty good evidence that O'Bama has no interst in reducing the price of energy.

We're paying twice what we did for gas, Scott; and there is no plan to drive that price down. The loonie lefties want the price of energy to be high, as does O'Bama.

[ScottL]

The moratorium was lifted the same year as the spill (2010) and the issuing of permits commenced heavily. As for the gas price, well he doesn't exactly control that, the markets and producers do. As far as I can tell he was a lot of bark and no bite when it came to new regulation on oil.

[ladajo]

Looks like the North Koreans made a boom again.
The question is, "What kind of boom is it?"

Initial media reports indicate somewhere in the 5KT(ish) range.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/11/world/asi ... ?hpt=hp_t1

U.S. analysts say North Korea's first bomb test, in October 2006, produced an explosive yield at less than 1 kiloton (1,000 tons) of TNT. A second test in May 2009 is believed to have been about 2 kilotons, National Intelligence Director James Clapper told a Senate committee in 2012.

The disturbance reported Tuesday had a magnitude of 5.1 -- upgraded from an initial estimate of 4.9 -- and took place at a depth of about one kilometer, the USGS said.
Kim Min-seok, a spokesman for the South Korean Defense Ministry, said the magnitude of the "artificial tremor" suggested the size of the blast could be in the order of 6 to 7 kilotons, more powerful than the North's two prior nuclear tests.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/02/12 ... onization/

Earlier Tuesday, South Korean, U.S. and Japanese seismic monitoring agencies said they detected an earthquake in North Korea with a magnitude between 4.9 and 5.2.

Annika Thunborg, who works for the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear monitoring agency the CTBTO, confirms to Fox News the blast was larger than past tests, measuring 4.9 seismically on the Richter scale. The country's 2006 test, which was widely seen as a failure, measured 4.1 and the 2009 test measured 4.5.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21429544

Nuclear test monitors in Vienna say the underground explosion had double the force of the last test, in 2009, despite the use of a device said by the North to be smaller.

To summarize:

2006 4.1 Richter <1 KTon Yield (Plutonium?)
2009 4.5 Richter ~2 KTon Yield (Plutonium?)
2013 4.9-5.1 Richter ~4-10 KTon Yield (Uranium?)

In comparison:
Hiroshima ~15Kton Yield Uranium Gun Type Weapon 9,700lbs total device weight, 141lb Core Material, 2lbs (est fissioned) for ~ .026oz matter/energy conversion (67 Terajoules)
Nagasaki (Fat Man) ~21Kton Yield Plutonium Implosion Type Weapon 10,213lbs total device weight, 14lb Core pit, 2.2lbs (est) fissioned for ~.035oz matter conversion/energy release (90 Terajoules)

Declared Mea Culpa for using Wiki Refs.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Man
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_yield
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass-energy_equivalence

And for further thought consider the payload capability of various rockets (remember basic weapon designs clock in at 10,000lbs/4,500Kg):
For arguments sake you can look at the LEO column, and realize you have a good bit of reserve capacity for weapon bus, guidance, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison ... ch_systems

Pay attention to the Russian and Chinese numbers.

[Skipjack]

Looks to me like it fizzled again.

[ladajo]

We would have to know which fuel and how much they used to get an idea.
But it is a low yield for an undeveloped program.

In comparison, as I recall, India's first test device was suppossedly designed for 10Kt, and delivered about 8Kt.
I think it physically weighed about 5,000lbs. (Too lazy to look it up...)
India's follow on testing gave for (I think) 50Kt and I want to say a 15Kt (ish).
They have also tested some configuration devices not meant for war use. These were sub-Kiloton research devices.

Pakistan had some low yield testing, as I recall it was on the order or North Korea, maybe better for yields.

To be fair, the type of testing does matter. But I sincerely doubt North Korea has the technical capability to do low yield test & analysis.
At this point, I think if they are actually burning material, it is to get a boom.

But as I said before, they may also just have packed a bunch of HE in a hole...

[KitemanSA]

Has anyone checked their diesel and ammonium nitrate import levels?

[ladajo]

Aren't they on the embargo list as "Dual Use" technology items?

[JLawson]

Has anyone checked their diesel and ammonium nitrate import levels?

Didn't they have a famine last year? Maybe some things got diverted...

Come to think of it, when DON'T they have a famine?

[hanelyp]

Come to think of it, when DON'T they have a famine?

Why should a slave make more than a token effort to keep the overseer's whip away?

[ladajo]

Usually, main stream media does not post on the internal reality of China. But here, CNN takes a crack...

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/03/business/ ... ?hpt=hp_c1