Geological note

 

Pennsylvania shales had a previously productive life about 20 million years ago, oozing oil into porous limestone, some of which was faulted and upthrown during The Ice Age and it leaked surface shows in Titusville, which became the great-great grandsire of U.S. oil exploration. Note that drilling a shale and fracturing it with a 4000 ft lateral to produce gas is constrained by geology. The total organic content (TOC), tens of millions of years of maturation into gas, and sufficient thickness for a mile or two matters. There's a grain structure in shale that determines which way you drill. I've estimated that the Marcellus Shale is 40% depleted, which contradicts money men and geologists working in the shale space. I wish them good fortune as long as it lasts. Below are two Range Resources maps, showing where the thick mature "core" plays are — a liquids bonanza with too much ethane in a region around Pittsburgh, and a dry gas land rush north of Scranton, with plenty of 1000 ft offsets on the leased acreage to leisurely produce more gas unless the balance sheet sputters with stagflation, higher junk bond rates, labor shortage, completion delays, or water use limitation.

 

Same thing in North Dakota, a thick rich core, 70% drilled to death.

 

Oh, boy, the Fox radio personality and former soccer player Brian Kilmeade suggested that we could help the oil and gas industry deliver exports to Europe, like we helped the pharmaceutical industry roll out billions of MRNA shots for every man, woman and child on earth, triple shots for obedient U.S. chumps until today. A fourth shot was approved for people over 50. CDC didn't consult their panel of experts, took Pfizer's word for it, and said they weren't sure how well a second booster would work.

 

Throwing money at a fat pharma ecosystem to make medicines is relatively frictionless compared to an order compelling oil and gas producers to drill more and ship more LNG. The only way to obtain more natural gas for liquefaction and export in a matter of months is to steal it from U.S. consumers. It takes years to build or expand LNG terminals, so we should recruit the Canadians to help. We export gas to Canada, and they're mad about cancellation of Keystone XL. If diplomacy fails we could order Shell and Exxon to tear up contracts on Defense Production Act force majeure to ship LNG from Australasia, but China, Japan, and Korea will scream bloody murder. I don't know how to fix that, except to maybe offer our allies U.S. crude in compensation for LNG snatched from the Pacific Rim. We could sacrifice some oil imports and divert them to Japan and Korea, dispatch guided missile cruisers and attack subs to escort LNG shipping past China, who we don't need to compensate. China gets Russian LNG at a discount.

 

Why can't U.S. natural gas producers just step up their game, drill more, double our domestic supplies in fairly short order? Four hurdles. No manpower, few rigs, backlogged completion contractors, and phony reserves. We could get a little more gas overnight by ordering BHP to open the chokes in Haynesville, if the pipes are big enough to transport more. But forget about doubling U.S. gas production. It would be like ordering farmers to plant and harvest twice as much wheat, or GM to make twice as many vehicles, snapping their corporate fingers to equip more suppliers and factories, train inexperienced people, and build EVs without chips. We could invade Taiwan to loot their semiconductors, I suppose.

 

See what I mean? You can't order agriculture or industrial manufacturing to suddenly do more. Natural gas doesn't fly out of the ground because you want it to. Drilling and fracking a new gas well entails a lot of resources in short supply — steerable bits, coiled tube, fresh water, proppant goo, and contaminated  water disposal. Production requires gathering equipment and connection to an interstate pipeline. The Eagle Ford dry gas leg in South Texas could ramp up pretty quickly if you throw money at it, but I doubt that there are enough skilled people to hurry up more drilling. I have an index of companies active in the Eagle Ford shale. There are five dozen pipeline operators, contractors, and lease operators, including a joint venture with China's flagship CNOOC funding Chesapeake's wet gas development. Cheniere could use more engineering and cryogenic construction crews in Corpus Christie to boost LNG shipping.

Forget about recruiting people off the street. Geology and petroleum engineering are lifelong careers, and toolpushers do not want amateur help. Drivers need a clean CDL, have to pass drug tests, work long hours, drive on rural blacktop and gravel, and back up long tank trailers right on the money every time. There is a national shortage of qualified drivers, pipefitters, welders, and experienced rig hands — not the sort of work that snowflakes or pajama boys could do. Oil Patch community colleges try to enroll young strong men who have families to support, teach them high paying blue collar trades. Gas drillers work 24/7 until a mile long vertical bore and a 4000 ft horizontal lateral are completed safely, including high pressure cement, hydraulic fracture, water disposal, control cap and choke, connected to the field infrastructure. It's dangerous work in a loud, rough, technically exacting, tiring industry. Workers have been killed or seriously injured, despite mandatory Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) training, pro safety equipment, and daily HSE inspection. Go ahead, order everybody to work harder and faster.

 

>>> NEWS FLASH <<<  Holy hell, pardon my language, I just figured out how to rescue Europe. It will require international force majeure at bayonet point and a dozen C-5 missions. Seize Anadarko's shale rigs and drilling crews in Denver, the Conoco rigs and roughnecks from Unita and Piceance basins, and Santos in Queensland, all the coiled tube that Baker Hughes has in inventory, a shitload of Halliburton mud, cement, proppant, a crack wireline crew, downhole tools, mud loggers, and the Schlumberger StacFrac team. Fly everything and everyone to Poland. Frack the Gdansk Depression and Danish-Polish Marginal Trough, targeting the organic-rich Silurian section. Put Exxon in charge. If Poland doesn't like it, declare NATO emergency martial law enforced by the 82nd Airborne and a squad of bilingual diplomats to compensate and relocate civilians who are in the way. Recruit Shell and Total to hire drivers, move water, drill disposal wells, do gas gathering, and push rig supplies around.

 

Presto! — energy independence for Western Europe in 15 months with 15 rigs and a big Schlumberger completion team, European supermajors dividing logistics, and Exxon in command. Only one caveat. Don't let ENI or Repsol offer to help. Suggest they explore Somalia.

 

                     

 

UPDATE 4/15, income tax day and Good Friday, over 380 million people under some form of lockdown in China, millions starving in Shanghai. An interruption of American free enterprise to liberate Western Europe, amply compensated and reimbursed for expenses, isn't much to ask. We should invite spouses and families to visit Poland, first class accommodation, unless the rig hands and engineers would rather party with Polish ladies — which reminds me of what Englishmen said about our 8th Air Force during World War II. Yanks were "over here, over paid, and over sexed!" Jimmy Stewart was a B-17 pilot, flew 20 missions, his plane shot up twice, rose to become wing commander and decorated general officer, saw it as a duty that he couldn't shirk. We have to free Europe from Putin. No one else can do it, except "oil field trash" who know how to sweat blood and frack. Lord help the pretty young babes of Poland in charge of food, drink, and housekeeping. Essential to press gang the Aussies drilling for Santos. They'll drink you under the table and have your back in a bar fight with shavetail Airborne MPs. Probably need a passel of tort settlement lawyers, sooner or later.

 

Concurrent with a gush of natural gas production to declare independence from Russia, we should train locals to learn the trade, take over field development. Exxon can arrange for rig rentals and toolpushers as needed. Poland will inherit a hugely profitable industry, selling gas to Germany, Italy, Spain, Denmark, and domestic consumers. They can pay Uncle Sam a royalty for production on the 45 wells we drilled at lightning speed to deduct $300 billion a year from Putin's war machine.

 

4/26 — Wait a minute, hold everything. The DNC cloak and dagger subcommittee known as Joe Biden shipped heavy weapons to Ukraine and announced the war aim of defeating Russia.

 

Don't send anyone to Poland or try to save Europe. Pushing Putin into a corner gives him no exit ramp. Wall Street is cracking under the pressure. Leave Anadarko in Colorado, Conoco in Utah, and Santos in Queensland, where they'll have greater likelihood of survival as far as possible from the wasteland of a nuclear exchange.

 

Good time to review foreign policy strategy.

https://vimeo.com/299712339  The Executive Power

 

Harrumphed

 

Totally exasperated, futzing with two sticks of dynamite and I can't get them to explode. So far nothing but a sputter that could have been a bump of overvoltage in my somewhat primitive incandescent barn lighting. It happens occasionally in rural life, the bulbs brighten briefly, a little spark across a condenser somewhere on the line. My imaginary sticks of story dynamite did nothing, didn't even get warm.

  

I hate being embarrassed. I stalked Frank Zappa for years, made a complete fool of myself. Shaking my head about antics in Hollywood, barging in on Al Ruddy twice, pitching idiotically dumb projects.

 

Maybe I need to climb K2, try slapping sticks of dynamite together at altitude. Do things explode from time to time in the Himalayas? Nepal tried a communist dictatorship, then attempted a constitutional republic, which was extremely bizarre because the Kathmandu School of Law quoted me as an authority on equity. It prohibits fishing with dynamite, among other things. Imagine how stupid I'd feel if I blew up a lakefront Nepalese tourist hotel experimenting with an explosive story twist.

 

I'm beginning to believe that novels should not twist.

 

THE NEXT DAY — Considering different men. I think I understand serenity, but I had considerably more experience as a desperado, a director, a stunned victim, an airhead dreamer, and a Vulcan engineer in my youth. Other men I've known were cynics, epicures, tragic comedians, minstrels, amused geniuses, dangerous criminals, empty husks incapable of asking questions, lonely artists, patrons, AIDS patients on their deathbeds, glib crooks, and hardened warriors. My friend Tom is a courageous and comical stoic. I don't want to consider women at the moment. The main character of Steam Punk is male.

 

Murkowski on the radio, contemplating the looming recession, quoted John Candy in "Stripes" to advise that men should become lean, mean fighting machines in business and personal life. Good investment strategy, if one wishes to succeed economically. I admit that money can buy happiness, although it risks tripping on landmines in divorce court, and the green eyeshade example of Lucas was not inspirational.

 

My friend Richard had everything against him, yet he enjoyed life, took it on the chin, suffered, and then bounced back a hundred times. It never darkened his soul. Some are indefatigably positive. Wife #3 said that I had "unsunny passions." Not an interesting quality in a main character. I covered moral collapse in Partners and multiple personal narratives. Shallow writers write about themselves.

 

In Solitaire, there are forks to probe and patterns to perceive. The game must be played well, but finally it's in the deal or it's not. Some hands cannot be played, a terrible shuffle of the cards. That's karma.

 

You know what's funny? My elderly teeth are so fragile that a sneeze can be dangerous. I always hated dentists, although I had some expert care in Harley Street and Hollywood. Everyone has a nemesis or an awkward handicap of some kind. Mine was sensitivity. Good quality for a writer, I suppose, but I need to keep it on a leash. It's a question of style. King Crimson was not sensitive. He was angry and regal.

 

It's tempting to make Larko angry and regal on page one.

 

Don't be impatient. Take your time. Let it mature. Forget how it opens. You need a third act, remember? That's how this experiment started, rubbing two sticks of dynamite together, didn't work. It's the story of a man's life. Careful about flashbacks, restrict it to revisiting George's basement workbench, and get him out of there in one piece, unchanged on the outside. Ratchet up a second inciting incident pronto, something that cracks his shell. I think the kid is important. I don't know why I forgot him — well, maybe I do. I stupidly attempted a dramatic twist, two sticks of crap dynamite, a cheap trick of pulp fiction.

 

So, the kid is important. Not a second act pivot as such. A role reversal in Larko's life, seeing himself in the same place as the kid. The kid needs a name. Let him be a black kid. Yuval Runch. A terrible name. Larko will elicit a secret name that the kid wants or dreams — Tyrone Fury. This is solid stuff. You're on the right track. Nowhere near the third act, however. Don't be impatient. Let it cook some more.

 

SLIGHT CHANGE OF TOPIC — I have to expiate guilt, specifically the misery of a salaried corporate staff writer, $68K and benefits, a job that I grew to hate in a matter of weeks, called into HR and fired. Just let it fade away, please. Some things need to be forgotten. I don't mind remembering prison or lost loves, inexcusably wild behavior. But it makes me shudder in horror that I went willingly into slavery on the top floor of a Houston office building, unable to smile when my work was mutilated or ignored. I cannot let Steam Punk fall into the hands of a literary agent or copy editor. It will have to be self published and die an obscure death on Amazon. Thinking about money is debilitating, a crowded highway to hell. Squeaky clean millionaire Metaxas concurred with a rich fake rabbi on national radio: "We are obliged to pray."

 

Horseshit. God told me he doesn't answer prayers.

 

“Sorry,” I said contritely. “Why am I here?”

God squirmed in a worn padded swivel chair and grumped. “I don't know. Randominy, a billion genetic dice rolls, favorable political history and penicillin. I wasn't paying much attention, to be honest.”

“Busy answering prayers?”

God gave a sharp glance of disdain. “Is there something wrong with your hearing? I just told you, I wasn't paying attention.”

I nodded in polite concordance. “Most people knew that. That's why Churchill didn't pray — or did he?”

God shook his head no. “I could check the records, but I doubt it.”

I smiled inside. “You helped them, didn't you?”

God wouldn't answer. He took a Havana Diplomat from its glass tube and cut the end with his cigar knife.

The chain of reasoning saddened me. “By saving England...”

“Don't even go there, kid,” God interrupted. “Here. Smoke a cigar and turn your brain off a couple minutes, so I can think straight. Please.”

 

I'm okay with God, his son Jake, and quite a lot of the celestial furniture, but I find it difficult to accept the existence of fairly good, peeled, diced, ripe canned peaches and pears loaded on 40-ft containers in Shanghai, cheaper than we can grow them in Georgia or Alabama. Makes me wonder about McDonald's, Burger King, and Denny's. The biggest U.S. bacon supplier is owned by China. Exactly how American are the institutional American cheese slices that are shipped in 30-lb cartons to schools, prisons, and chain restaurants? Even my new bottle of multivitamins was made in China — god!

 

“What?”

“Sorry, sir. I wasn't saying that to bother you.”

“What's the problem?”

I slumped and drooped, hung my head in defeat. “I'm very grateful to work again, no matter how hard it is,” I said honestly but without fire. I wished I was morally stronger.

“Let me give you a piece of advice,” God harrumphed. “I am the Lord Thy God — all powerful and complete unto myself. I can create worlds beyond worlds and history itself. Follow? Forget about what happened when Walt died. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. He's had to accept it, that everything he did was shredded by Iger. How do you think Victor Hugo feels? A masterpiece adapted by Murphy, for fuck's sake!”

“I know.”              

“So get a grip, unless you want me to punch your ticket for purg.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

God relented four notches, to give me a break. “Eat dinner. I'll send you an angel. You've earned it. Eternity is a long term proposition, son. Remember what your Mom said: Don't be so hard on yourself.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Over and out with sauerkraut.”

I snickered and grinned. God was great.

 

 

Cast of comedians in order of appearance: Narrator, a Talking Duck, Adele Flooney, Almighty God, Ayn Rand, Nick Narcourt, Gary Cooper, Kyle Marshall, Clare Wright, J. P. Morgan, Jake the Carpenter, Betsy, Pamela, and Alejandro Rey, plus a supporting cast of bit players like Annette Funicello, who belongs in any sane man's heaven, restored to youthful beauty and reunited with a loving and loyal husband. Heaven should have happy endings or there's no sense calling it heaven, right? Fantastic and heartbreaking, author Wolf DeVoon offers an adult tale of kinky sex, residential construction comedy, and heavenly sports that make grown men blush.

 

 

Joke of The Century

 

NPR Science Friday reports 11˚C polar warming on Neptune.

Quick! — alert the EPA, ban cow farts on outer planets!

 

Seriously, I despise NPR. Nonstop praise for Jews by Jews. They promote BIPOC to make themselves bulletproof, no different than Biden appointing blacks and queers to castrate Republicans. None of it would exist without inertia and a century of "progressive" indoctrination and taxpayer rape. It began with Fabian water and sewer socialism in England, the progenitor of BBC state broadcasting funded by an annual license tax to own a radio (later, to own a television set). No joke, BBC enforcement officers go door to door, listening to detect if unlicensed scofflaws are using a radio or TV set. The Brits honored Karl Marx with a giant bust that dominates the cemetery where he was interred and sacred preservation of the house in London where he terrorized his family and wrote Das Capital, funded by a useful idiot who never worked a day in his life, heir to a Victorian industrial fortune. America followed suit. NPR was the brainchild of Marxist academics and touchy feely hacks playing dress up as public service stars. One two-minute Heather MacDonald segment on commercial radio makes the entire nonprofit broadcasting empire sound stupid, reading scripted socialist talking points in kindergarten language 24/7/365.

 

Am I bitter? Yes. BBC and NPR decide which authors to push.

 

UPDATE 4/30  Unbelievably, I awoke to a quadruple obscenity on NPR's Weekend Edition — a fawning pajama boy interviewing pervert John Waters on the occasion of his 1972 film Pink Flamingos inducted to a queer dominated Library of Congress National Film Archive. Waters celebrated Ru Paul's Drag Race as an equally triumphant gay social victory, mainstreaming dog shit ugly ass hats.