Guest “Two posts for the price of one” by David Middleton
AUGUST 31, 2021
Six U.S. states accounted for over half of the primary energy produced in 2019In 2019, the top six primary energy-producing states—Texas, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and North Dakota—accounted for 55 quadrillion British thermal units (quads), or 55% of all of the primary energy produced in the United States. In 2000, these six states had accounted for 39% of the nation’s primary energy production, indicating that primary energy production has become more concentrated to the top producing states.
Primary energy production in the United States grew 40% from 2009 to 2019, driven largely by increased crude oil and natural gas production in Texas, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and North Dakota. During that period, advances in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling made drilling for previously inaccessible crude oil and natural gas more economical in the United States. Between 2009 and 2019, production of primary energy more than doubled in Texas and Oklahoma, more than tripled in Pennsylvania, and more than quadrupled in North Dakota.
[…]
EIA
A fairly significant portion of the oil production from “rest of United States” comes from the Federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico, produced by companies mostly in Texas and, to a much lesser extent, in Louisiana.
So, Texas is a significantly bigger energy producer than portrayed in the EIA graphs.
Speaking of the Gulf of Mexico…
News Flash!
Biden administration takes step to resume drilling auctions in setback to climate agenda
By Nichola Groom 08/31/21Aug 31 (Reuters) – The Biden administration on Tuesday unveiled more than 700,000 acres it plans to auction to oil and gas drillers as it seeks to comply with a U.S. federal court order directing the government to resume its leasing program.
The move represents a setback for Democratic President Joe Biden’s plans to fight climate change, which included a campaign vow to end new oil and gas leasing on federal lands and waters.
Biden had paused drilling auctions after taking office in January pending an analysis of their impacts on the environment and value to taxpayers.
In June, however, a federal judge in Louisiana ordered a resumption of auctions, saying the government was required by law to offer acreage to the oil and gas industry.
[…]
The Interior Department was expected to unveil details for an offshore auction in the Gulf of Mexico later on Tuesday.
Reuters
“Later on Tuesday”…
BOEM Updates Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 257 Record of Decision
Release Date 08/31/2021
As follow up to the Department of the Interior’s announcement on August 24, BOEM has posted an updated Record of Decision (ROD) for Lease Sale 257 (LS 257) to its website.
The Department has determined to move forward with the process for Gulf of Mexico (GOM) Lease Sale 257, consistent with the Secretary’s authorities and discretion under applicable law.
This ROD identifies BOEM’s selected alternative (i.e., Alternative A) for proposed LS 257, which is analyzed in the Gulf of Mexico OCS Lease Sale: Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement 2018 (2018 GOM Supplemental EIS). Alternative A allows for a proposed GOM regionwide lease sale encompassing all three planning areas: Western Planning Area (WPA); Central Planning Area (CPA); and a small portion of the Eastern Planning Area (EPA) not under congressional moratorium.
As stated in the Department of the Interior’s announcement, BOEM expects a Final Notice of Sale for LS 257 to publish in September, with a lease sale to follow in the fall of this year.
For more information, including a copy of the ROD, please go to https://www.boem.gov/environment/environmental-assessment/nepa-activities-gulf-mexico.
— BOEM —
The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is responsible for America’s offshore energy and mineral resources. The bureau promotes energy independence, environmental protection and economic development through responsible, science-based management of energy and mineral resources on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf.
BOEM
As nearly as I can tell, the regular March Gulf of Mexico lease sale will be back on in 2022.
Returning to the actual topic of this post…
Fun With Statistics!
Energy/Population
States with 15% of the population, produce 55% of the primary energy with 7 times the productivity of the 44 other states…
| 2020 Census | % of US | Energy (Quads) | Pop/Quad | |
| 6 Energy States | 49,266,363 | 15% | 55 | 895,752 |
| 44 Other States | 285,477,936 | 85% | 45 | 6,343,954 |
| 50 US States | 334,744,299 |
Energy/Politics
Unsurprisingly, the energy producing states are overwhelmingly Republican…
| US Senate | US House | 2016 | 2020 | |||
| R | D | R | D | Trump/Commie | Trump/Commie | |
| 6 Energy States | 10 | 2 | 41 | 22 | 76 | 57 |
| 44 Other States | 40 | 48 | 171 | 198 | 0 | 19 |
California and New York should have contributed more, given geology, but the State governments are crazy even for Democrats.
What’s scary, is that CA has, for most of the last decade has been neck-in-neck or ahead of Alaska in terms of oil production. But we’re not allowed to really use that oil, and we pay massive taxes (and bear the regulatory burden demanded by custom blends) for the privilege of pumping all that oil…
Griff to set up a Go Fund Me Pacifier account ?
😉
Goes well with his butt-hurt account.
Pacifier?In British usage, A pacifier is a dummy.
Seems appropriate for Griff.
And in German I think a dummy is “poopen” which also seems appropriate.
So, why doesn’t Biden just change the law? This sounds like the, “I couldn’t help it, the judge made me do it” excuse. Well, OK, if OPEC won’t increase its output, I guess we’ll just have to get a judge to force us to drill for our own.
My brain is boggling. I need a nice glass of wine.
JB is more likely to ignore the courts and do what he wants to do. (See the rent moratorium) Not to say he’ll get his way, but they’ve been putting in liberal judges like they’re going out of style. (As we could only hope)
Biden can ignore the courts but he can’t ignore the loyal Democrat base. He can not say, “We have to drill for oil because it’s a good idea.” He can’t say, “Hey folks, we actually need fossil fuels.” If he did, I suspect he would be institutionalized and Harris would be the President within 24 hours.
The same “loyal base” that did not attend Biden’s rallies?
The squeaky wheel activists are not much of a base.
If/when Biden pisses off the real base, their mid term elections will be disasters from the lowest levels of government to Congressional seats.
Let’s hope so! That’s our only hope to being rescued from the US being driven off a cliff!
I have a bad feeling the ISIS Islamists are looking to round up stranded Americans in Afghanistan and behead them on camera for the whole world to see.
Joe Biden’s and the Democrat’s approval ratings will hit the basement floor if that happens.
I just heard that about 500 people working for foreign news organizations are still trapped in Afghanistan, along with a school class from Calfornia that was over there visiting.
Well, a couple of beheadings, and women being stoned to death and the kids will come home (maybe) understanding how all cultures are equal, and that diversity and inclusion of different lifestyles and opinions is what matters most in life (and death), as opposed to the obviously debased and racist model of Western civilization, free enterprise, and freedom of speech and religion.
WTF is a school class from California (figures) doing in Afghanistan?
What a great week the Bai Den Regime is having! After hurriedly surrendering to the Taliban, turning them overnight into the best armed terrorist group in the world by leaving billions of dollars in weapons and equipment, and, probably, hundreds of Americans behind in Afghanistan; our feckless and imcompetent elites must be gnashing their teeth over this news!
How can you crush the middle class when energy is cheap and abundant? Fortunately, the media lapdogs and the corporate owned “health” bureaucracies have hit on Perpetual Covid as the best way to attain the totalitarian control they crave. Why worry about pushing a nonexistent climate apocalypse when you can frighten most people into committing economic suicide and voluntarily taking genetic modifying vexxines that appear to be the primary cause of the ChiCom variants’ rise and rapid spread!?
If the ChiComs were in control of our government, what would they do differently? Probably figure out a way to drive fuel prices higher in spite of renewed exploration and drilling!
It was reported on the radio today that the equipment left behind was disabled and wouldn’t function.
Jim
Which is why the Taliban were flying around in a helicopter with victims hanging by their necks from the skids.
I’d be surprised if the military didn’t have the ability to send a command to most of the high tech equipment, telling it to erase the programs and perhaps short out some of the more sensitive parts.
Yes, MarkW.
Also, I suspect that the US military themselves have difficulty in maintaining the battle-readiness of much of their latest equipment and getting qualified personnel to do so. The Taliban will never do so, and it would probably take the Chinese a decade to do it. It will mostly be useless within weeks, if not less.
But hey, the manufacturers don’t really need to care, do they?
I read that the “fact-checkers” claimed the helicopter story wasn’t true. I guess the videos were CG then?
Disabled enough the Chinese couldn’t fix’em for the Taliban?
A claim from the same feckless idiots who left them the gear?
Cutting tires, fuel and hydraulic hoses will not slow farm equipment experienced taliban very long.
Did they also disable the 50+ bomb-sniffing dogs that were left behind?
Even if disabled, the equipment and arms provide hard currency as spare parts, plus the uniforms, radios and NV gear mean that the Taliban or anyone they supply will be indistinguishable from OUR troops at anything but point blank range!!
Send in the F-35s.
“What a great week the Bai Den Regime is having! After hurriedly surrendering to the Taliban”
I said the other day that if I were in charge, I would tell the Taliban to vacate the city of Kabul so that those who wanted to get to the airport could get there without being threatened by terrorists, and I said I would threaten the Taliban leadership with physical harm if they didn’t pull their troops outside Kabul.
Well, it turns out I would not have had to threaten the Taliban in order to control Kabul. The lastest report is the Taliban offered to stay out of Kabul, but one of our brilliant generals, said that wasn’t necessary because all the U.S. needed was the airport!
All that insanity outside the gates of the airport would never have happened if this U.S. general had taken control of the streets of Kabul. Instead, he allowed the Taliban to take control.
This general definitely has to go! He obviously is not qualified to lead our military. He should go, along with the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who are also obviously not qualified to lead our military. They should all resign now. Their delusional thinking poses a danger to the United States. And take Joe with you! He’s the most delusional of all!
Reality will win the battle of AGW. But there is a question of will it win before or after the war.
Courts … schwarts … Byedin-Heiress don’t care about courts. They’d just keep appealing and/or ignoring rulings. No … what REALLY changed is the price of gasoline and runaway inflation.
The final tipping point of the last real estate bubble was $5.00/gal. gasoline. The gasoline surcharge fees KILLED the economy and drove unemployment … which drove evictions and rents crashed.
Byedin-Heiress are getting close to that tipping point again with $4.69/gal. cost in my Bay Area suburb.
Thanks David, interesting information.
Almost 6 PAs will fit in one TX.
When I was a kid in PA an uncle was a driller and another ran a dragline.
PA is a great state to be from.
Apart from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is the Yankee version of Texas… 😎
We need to pay Jersey to take Philly
Jersey already has Camden and Trenton, why would they take Philadelphia at any price.
For the Gulf of Mexico, wouldn’t BOEM be “La BOEM”? Just a random thought…
Lame Ass Bureau of Ocean Energy Management? I like it! 😎
The claim that the oil producing states are “overwhelmingly Republican” does appear to hold water when you look at actual votes cast. In the 2020 House elections in those 6 states, Republicans got 55% of the vote, while in the senate they got 57% of the vote. Which is hardly overwhelming.
Anyway a far better predictor of voting preference is the Urban/Rural divide. States will sparse populations are far more likely to have land available for mining and vote Republican.
“The number votes cast” has nothing to do with the number of representatives elected to congress by party in these states or any state. All that is needed to do that is a plurality. The number of representatives elected by party is the only measure that means anything as far as authoring laws, forming policy and casting votes in the US congress.
So your entire post is meaningless too.
The number of votes cast and the number of voters who actually cast votes are different in the Democratic big cities. Even if you don’t think of it as fraud and there may be laws allowing it, collecting ballots and filling them in for unconcerned voters is considered election fraud by most Americans.
We had one Democrat House representative in Oklahoma before the 2020 election. She was voted out of office and replaced by a Republican in the 2020 election. Now, all State House representatives are Republicans.
Oklahoma is about as Red as you are going to get. But we do have little enclaves of lefties centered around the colleges, like in every State.
I’m surprised Alaska is not in the top 5. The production from the North Slope must have really dropped off.
It used to be and, yes, North Slope production is down. Unless ANWR and the Chukchi Sea & Beaufort Sea OCS areas are fully opened for exploration & drilling, North Slope production will soon decline to the point that the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System has to be shut down and dismantled.
Statistical summaries don’t necessarily provide a good picture of energy production.
For instance, in 2020, New Mexico was the third largest producer of crude oil, more than two orders of magnitude greater production than Pennsylvania.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/714376/crude-oil-production-by-us-state/
In 2021, first half, Florida was the nation’s second largest producer of natural gas.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1184356/us-leading-natural-gas-energy-producing-states/#:~:text=Texas%20is%20the%20leading%20U.S.%20state%20in%20natural,that%20consumes%20the%20most%20natural%20gas%20energy%20.
Few people tend to think of Florida as a major energy producer.
That doesn’t make the stats cited here wrong or irrelevant, but summary multiple source stats do tend to obscure rather than inform.
New Mexico ranked 3rd in 2020 (most recent full year) crude oil production (4th if you count GOM).
On a month-to-month basis, New Mexico has edged ahead of North Dakota lately…
Florida produces very little natural gas…
https://www.eia.gov/state/analysis.php?sid=FL
The Statista chart is of electricity generation from natural gas…
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1184356/us-leading-natural-gas-energy-producing-states/#:~:text=Texas%20is%20the%20leading%20U.S.%20state%20in%20natural,that%20consumes%20the%20most%20natural%20gas%20energy%20
Electricity generation is not energy production. Florida does generate a lot of electricity, mostly from natural gas.
In terms of oil & gas resources, Florida has the largely tapped out onshore Jurassic Smackover play in the panhandle (Jay Field) and the very mature Sunniland play in Collier County. Florida also probably has immense resource potential offshore in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, which has been off limits to exploration for the past 40 years, largely due to bipartisan opposition from Florida politicians.
For whatever reason, I thought of the line “I drink your milkshake” from the movie There Will Be Blood..
It’s a good time to renew the drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico after Hurricane Ida knocked a lot of the existing wells offline. Hidin’ Biden doesn’t want to admit it, but we do need the oil, and we can’t really count on the Middle East or Venezuela.
Put your hands together for British thermal units 🙂
“… plans to fight climate change,”
One day, phrases like that will be rightly seen as a superstition belief. It is on the same level as we today see a witch doctor claiming to fight an erupting volcanoe if the villagers just gives him their best fruits and foods… and a few virgins.
If the burning of fossil fuels is so bad the federal government should make even the possession of fossil fuels a felony. They should make it illegal to make use of any goods and or services that in any way makes use of fossil fuels. That includes all products moved by truck including food, clothing, building materials, and appliances. People should immediately turn the power off to their homes and or businesses and leave the power off or be prosecuted and imprisoned for not doing so. Do not walk on man made surfaces where the materials to make them were moved by truck. Strictly following these rules will result in a very rapid decrease in human population but it will most likely have no effect on global climate.