Oh Gorilla, Grant Us "Energy Independence"

As many South Dakota-based readers know, a deep-pocketed but anonymous entity has been trying to purchase large tracts of land near Elk Point in southeast SoDak for months. Clearly big development plans were afoot.

Code-named "Gorilla," the secret project had everyone from local landowners to the Wall Street Journal buzzing about what the new development might be.

Yesterday, the announcement came: Dallas-based Hyperion Resources is planning to build an "eco-friendly oil refinery," as reported here in the Argus Leader and here in the WSJ. Apparently the Elk Point site is preferred by Hyperion, but not necessarily the final choice.

From the Argus story:

"The project would refine 400,000 barrels of oil into low-sulfur gasoline and diesel fuel each day, enough to serve South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska, said Richard Benda, state tourism and development secretary. During four years of construction, the project would create an average of 4,500 jobs, Phillips said. Once built, it would employ 1,800 full-time workers earning between $20 and $30 per hour, he said."

As the article goes on to note, this massive "energy center" could coincide with another oil-related project in the state: TransCanada, a Calgary-based energy infrastructure behemoth, has plans to place an underground oil pipeline (the Keystone Pipeline) through eastern South Dakota. From the Argus:

"A Canadian firm, TransCanada, is planning a pipeline that would move 435,000 barrels of crude oil per day under South Dakota by 2009. Trans-Canada spokesman Jeff Rauh said Wednesday that the pipeline is not related to Hyperion, and the two companies have not met.He did say TransCanada always is looking for new customers and could expand its daily volume to 590,000 barrels. Rauh said a spur line of 30 miles or so to meet Hyperion's refinery would be possible."

The pipeline and its proposed route actually would pass over some Carson farmland west of Langford, SD. Needless to say, we will be paying attention in the coming months and years.

BC

Farm Bill, 2007 Iteration

Any readers interested in tracking the progress of the 2007 U.S. Farm Bill, currently winding its way through Congress, should check out Farm Policy, a balanced, fairly comprehensive blog covering the bill's particulars.

The link can also be found in the right column under "Ag and Natural Resource Policy."

BC

Real "Energy Independence"?

Politicians (typically congressmen and women) routinely cite "Energy Independence" as a laudable national goal. What exactly this glossy slogan means is another issue altogether. Most policymakers would argue that deriving all sources of energy consumption from domestic production is virtually impossible in today's globalized economic system. Renewable energy is highly touted, but for the foreseeable future, ethanol, biodeisel, wind turbines, solar panels and the like will cover a growing, but minimal level of our national energy needs.

Enter Western North America: specifically, Colorado, Utah and northern Alberta. Colorado and Utah have as much oil as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Nigeria, Kuwait, Libya, Angola, Algeria, Indonesia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates combined. Northern Alberta, similarly, holds more oil than all of the Arabian peninsula. The challenging part is mining and extracting the oil, as it not the slippery liquid kind, but the gooey, pasty or rocky variety. But the technology is evolving rapidly. Some estimates say the oil deposit in Colorado and Utah alone could supply U.S. energy needs for another century. Combined with the energy resources of our friendly neighbor to the north, a $20 per-barrel oil market could be just as likely in the coming decades as doomsday "peak oil" predictions. The geopolitical ramifications are, of course, enormous if Chevron, Shell and others pull off an inexpensive and efficient method of mining, extracting and refining the new black gold.

Remember the Middle East, and how we used to spend a great deal of time securing pipelines, production facilities and oil refineries there? Back in the good old days of the early 21st century?

BC


Hmmm...
Scroll a little further down in that linked article for the cons: "the techniques will drain water supplies, scar the landscape and require so much power the skies will be choked with smoke from coal-fed generators."
Yikes. I'm with the Western Colorado Congress on this one -- let's invest that money in research for renewable energy instead. I'm also with former Governor Lamm:"It doesn't excite me because I think they're about to indelibly change our state."
Nope. Not good. Not good at all.
EC

Huckabee on Evolution, and Creation

I'm not sure if anyone caught the third GOP presidential debate last night -- EC and I just watched it tonight on CNN.com. We're finding it very difficult not to like Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee quite a lot. Part of me thinks: this guy is too reasonable, too grounded, and too witty...to be President of the United States. Check this video on Huckabee's eloquent response to a question about evolution and the Biblical Creation account.

BC

New Monastics and the St. Benedict Option

Here's a fascinating interview (from Speaking of Faith) with Shane Claiborne, founder of the New Monasticism: Christians from a variety of backgrounds who chose to live in intentional communities, relocating to what they call "the abandoned places of Empire." Claiborne's community settled in poverty-stricken, hollowed-out North Philadelphia.

EC and I have a couple of friends moving from Colorado Springs to Minneapolis, in order to start just such an intentional community. We ourselves have been (and continue to be) tempted by this lifestyle. At the very least, the New Monastics' emphasis on simplicity and service we hope to incorporate into our own daily lives--even in extraordinarily non-simple Washington, D.C. What a challenge...

BC
p.s. New Monasticism seems in some ways to be the opposite of what Rod Dreher of the Crunchy Con calls "The St. Benedict Option"--that is, calling on Christians to intentionally leave cities and organize themselves into new rural communities.

All things new

As is clearly evident, The Wild Olive is undergoing some tansitions. Among them are:

1) Brand new template, which I think looks a bit sharper than the dreary pastels of before, and
2) A different grouping of links on the right column, most notably into areas of policy interest/expertise for EC and myself.
3) A YouTube video feed at the bottom of the page, with random videos sorted by keywords "religion," "politics," "Islam," "Christianity," "campaign," etc....(we may regret this one, as we have little control over what pops up there).

Change is good. Why not spice it up a little?

BC

Oops.

Correction: In this recent blog entry, I attempted to paraphrase a quote from Russell Kirk. Not only did I paraphrase the quote (which can be forgiven), I identified the wrong source of the quote (which can't).

The real source of the quote is Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and the real quote is this:

"The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself." -Daniel Patrick Moynihan

You can do with it what you like. Ironically, it could be argued that this quote could be reversed today, with liberals more concerned about the more subtle aspects of culture and conservatives running headlong into political squabbles.

-BC