Off The Net For Awhile

USA Today has a fluff piece today; it must be a slow news day:  the 10 most oil-rich US states. Had they run the list based on a) amount of oil /size of state; or b) amount of oil per capita, North Dakota would have led the list by a huge margin. As it is, North Dakota came in 2nd to Texas.

Based on proven reserves (some numbers rounded):

• Texas: 10.5 billion (a population of 30 million  = 350 bbls/person)
• North Dakota: 5.7 billion (a population of 750,000 = 7,600 bbls/person)
• Alaska 2.9 billion (a population of 750,000 = 3,800 bbls/person)
• California 2.9 billion (a population of 40 million = 75 bbls/person)
• New Mexico: 1.2 billion (a population of 2 million = 600 bbls/person
• Oklahoma: 1 billion (a population of 4 million = 250 bbls/person)
• Colorado: 900 million
• Wyoming: 700 million
• Utah: 600 million
• Louisiana 500 million

There's another data point that jumped out at me. To date, this is how much oil selected states have produced, in total (some numbers rounded), this tells me how important the oil and gas industry has been for the state of North Dakota:

• North Dakota: 400 million (500 bbls/person; not 10x but 100x that of California)
• California: 200 million (5 bbls/person)
• Alaska: 180 million (250 bbls/person)

This is what they had to say about North Dakota:

Home to the Bakken shale formation, North Dakota is the archetype of the recent U.S. oil boom. From 2000 through 2013, proven oil reserves increased by more than 2,000%, from 270 million barrels to 5.7 billion barrels. And while only four new oil fields discovered in 2013, compared to the 29 fields discovered in 2010, the state still had the highest number of new field discoveries in the country. New oil discoveries have also helped create jobs in the state. Since 2001, North Dakota’s unemployment rate has risen above 4% only once, and the share of the labor force employed in mining and logging has grown from roughly 1% to 6.5%. Additionally, the state had the country’s highest GDP growth rate of 6.3%, of which 2.5 percentage points came from the mining industry.  

California has two realities to face:

• California’s proven oil reserves fell by nearly 25% from 2000 through 2013, one of only two of the most oil-rich states that did not increase its proven reserves over that period
• proven reserves mean nothing if the state citizens won't let them drill 

Alaska:

• like California, proven oil reserves in Alaska are declining, falling 40.4% from 2000 through 2013, including a 13.1% decline in 2012
• RBN update here  

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Dinosaurs: Note To The Granddaughters

I finally understand (or at least have a better understanding, superficial though it may be) of the taxonomy of dinosaurs. It is amazing how far "we've come" over the past fifty years with regard to this taxonomy. 

Up until recently, the book I enjoyed most on this subject was The Mistaken Extinction: Dinosaur Evolution and the Origin of Birds, Lowell Dingus and Timothy Rowe, c. 1998. In June (last month) I picked up the newest such book on dinosaurs: The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs, Gregory S. Paul, c. 2010.

It's the reptiles that have caused taxonomists problems all these years. It's very possible that like Pluto in my lifetime which lost its status as a planet, the term "reptiles" will be replaced by a new biologic term by the time the youngest granddaughter graduates from high school.

 

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