The Fall of California (and the Rise of North Dakota)
Stephen Moore, in the Wall Street Journal, on yet another aspect--the war against energy production--of the collapse of the Golden State:
While North Dakota's oil production has tripled since 2007 (to more than 150 million barrels in 2011), the Golden State's oil production has fallen by a third in the past 20 years, to 201 million barrels last year from 320 million in 1990. The problem isn't that California is running out of oil: In 2008, when the USGS estimated four million barrels of recoverable oil from the Bakken, it estimated closer to 15 million barrels in California's vast Monterey Shale.
Rather, California's problem is politicians—at the behest of their green-energy allies—deciding to wall off the state from developing evil fossil fuels....[w]ith its prohibitive environmental regulations, state cap-and-trade law, costly renewable energy mandates and 40 years of prohibitions on almost all offshore drilling....This month, according to North Dakota's Department of Mineral Resources, California is no longer America's third-largest energy-producing state—leapfrogged by North Dakota.
A population of 38 million is being held hostage, to overstate the case only a little, by the unwillingness of a few tens of thousands in Malibu, Santa Monica, and Venice (yes, Rob's neighborhood) to risk cluttering their ocean views.
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Dec '10
Re: The Fall of California (and the Rise of North Dakota)
It's going to undergo the gentrification of any brownfield site. Eventually outsiders will be able to buy it from the current residents at a deep discount.
Mar '11
Re: The Fall of California (and the Rise of North Dakota)
raycon: The few remaining Californians, and that includes Peter and Rob, will soon be leaving and landing in Colorado, already suffering from coastal pollution, and possibly even North Dakota and Texas and other still free states.
Unfortunately, living there there this long, the unmistakable taint of liberalism is still on your persons.
Be sure to wipe your feet before you emigrate across our border. · 43 minutes ago
I'm eyeing Texas myself, Colorado is a bit too purple for my taste. Looking over there I see where California was a decade ago, I know how that story goes already.
No need to worry about dirty feet. Those of us who have been through the crucible are not leaving in order to coddle failure elsewhere. It is time to stiffen some spines. I am unfortunate enough to reside in Sacramento, I have gazed into the abyss.
May '11
Re: The Fall of California (and the Rise of North Dakota)
Stuart Creque
It's going to undergo the gentrification of any brownfield site. Eventually outsiders will be able to buy it from the current residents at a deep discount. · 12 minutes ago
Where are you going to find the 20 million "gents" to gentrify it?
May '10
Re: The Fall of California (and the Rise of North Dakota)
There is one major typo in Moore's piece, as quoted above:
The word million didn't make much sense, since ND and Cali produce 150 and 200 million barrels of oil a year. Given that, reserves of 4 & 15 million barrels are nothing.
The piece has since been updated as such:
Now that makes more sense...
Edited on March 12, 2012 at 1:36amNov '10
Re: The Fall of California (and the Rise of North Dakota)
Dr. Hanson needs to get out to the vineyards and start shootin' at some food.
Re: The Fall of California (and the Rise of North Dakota)
The shortsightedness demonstrated here is remarkable. You don't need oil if you have light rail. Once you have more light rail, the demand for oil will decrease even more. If you drill or frack, you only prolong the day when you don't have any oil, and if you decrease the incentive for developing alternative fuels.
Do I have that right? I hear it enough; should be second-nature by now. Somehow it's unbellyfeel, though. Have to work on that.
Oh, one more thing: I can also assure you that the Monterey field is home to the red-crested deer tick, a natural check on the deer population, and if you think you'll be able to open up those fields and not have thousands of deer leaping in front of cars and killing children, you're fooling yourself.
Re: The Fall of California (and the Rise of North Dakota)
James Lileks: The shortsightedness demonstrated here is remarkable. You don't need oil if you have light rail. Once you have more light rail, the demand for oil will decrease even more. If you drill or frack, you only prolong the day when you don't have any oil, and if you decrease the incentive for developing alternative fuels.
Do I have that right? I hear it enough; should be second-nature by now. Somehow it's unbellyfeel, though. Have to work on that.
Oh, one more thing: I can also assure you that the Monterey field is home to the red-crested deer tick, a natural check on the deer population, and if you think you'll be able to open up those fields and not have thousands of deer leaping in front of cars andkilling children, you're fooling yourself. · 15 minutes ago
James: As always, the voice of sweet reason.
Aug '11
Re: The Fall of California (and the Rise of North Dakota)
Not North Dakota. Where are the ballet companies? As an old girlfriend once boasted "I could never live in a place that didn't have a thriving ballet company." That was one of the first clues that we were a bit . . . incompatible.
Jul '11
Re: The Fall of California (and the Rise of North Dakota)
Misthiocracy
You should change your username to Max Zorin. · 3 hours ago
Or Max Power.
Jul '11
Re: The Fall of California (and the Rise of North Dakota)
I had the chance to drive from San Jose down to Monterey once, about 12 years ago, and saw a lot of what was there on the coastline between those two locations - absolutely nothing. So the "pristine" nature of the coastline needing preserving makes no sense at all compared to the viability of the state, once the nation's economic powerhouse, rapidly turning into an abandoned city - in the form of an enormous state.
And for what, exactly? What benefit has been granted to Californians for all that's been done? Tell me, somebody. I'd like to know.
Mar '11
Re: The Fall of California (and the Rise of North Dakota)
There is a point to it. But it is simply not a rational one.
This is what the beginning of a Third World nation looks like. Study this well. A single party state, marshalling citizens into ethnic ghettos , circumscribe individual freedom and compel dependance on the State.
I have been compelled to watch this occur, do not fall into the same trap.
Oct '10
Re: The Fall of California (and the Rise of North Dakota)
Southern Californians are an elitist group that revel in the climate and views and will not let any reality prevail. On the whole, an arrogant populace with delusions of grandeure. Living in So Cal is nothing less than delusion in self importance. Their personal comfort and ego trumps all sanity
Edited on March 12, 2012 at 3:15amOct '10
Re: The Fall of California (and the Rise of North Dakota)
Chris Campion
Misthiocracy
You should change your username to Max Zorin. · 3 hours ago
Or Max Power. · 41 minutes ago
Ha! Well everything west of the San Andreas is supposed to shift north until it submerges in the Gulf of Alaska. The way I see it conservative gameplan is to wait it out. The drawback: it'll take about 10,000 years.
Oct '10
Re: The Fall of California (and the Rise of North Dakota)
James Lileks: The shortsightedness demonstrated here is remarkable. You don't need oil if you have light rail. Once you have more light rail, the demand for oil will decrease even more. If you drill or frack, you only prolong the day when you don't have any oil, and if you decrease the incentive for developing alternative fuels.
Do I have that right? I hear it enough; should be second-nature by now. Somehow it's unbellyfeel, though. Have to work on that.
Oh, one more thing: I can also assure you that the Monterey field is home to the red-crested deer tick, a natural check on the deer population, and if you think you'll be able to open up those fields and not have thousands of deer leaping in front of cars andkilling children, you're fooling yourself. · 1 hour ago
It's fracking ridiculous isn't it? There's also the Delta Smelt which Dennis Miller describes eloquently as being the size of an embryo on steroids.
Oct '10
Re: The Fall of California (and the Rise of North Dakota)
Conservatives in California will simply do what the conservatives in Detroit do, when they get it figured out there.
Mar '11
Re: The Fall of California (and the Rise of North Dakota)
Can we please expel California from the union. When California goes into a decade long depression, I don't want all the kool-aid drinkers moving to the south and screwing us over. How about this for immigration policy, if you were registered a Democrat from the 90's beyond in California you can't immigrate.
I work with dozens of people who used to live in Michigan. I only know 2 who ever went back.
Aug '10
Re: The Fall of California (and the Rise of North Dakota)
Chris Campion
Misthiocracy
You should change your username to Max Zorin. · 3 hours ago
Or Max Power. · 2 hours ago
Maybe Hank Scorpio...
Oct '10
Re: The Fall of California (and the Rise of North Dakota)
Why aren't California Republicans pushing for opening up California for oil and gas development? It may be the only thing that can help them win over there in the future.
Dec '10
Re: The Fall of California (and the Rise of North Dakota)
Misthiocracy
Annexation by British Columbia? · 5 hours ago
HA!
I'd bet money that the ND Nation Guard could invade and conquer most of Canada all by themselves.
Dec '10
Re: The Fall of California (and the Rise of North Dakota)
You don't.
You build a fence, buy a bag of popcorn and watch it burn to the ground.
Then, many years later, you go in, sweep up the mess, and start over with sanity as the prevailing ethos.
There's no way to fix what is there now, it has to collapse in on itself under its own weight.
No outside intervention can stop this eventuality, nor will any be required to cause it.