Instead of buying that shiny, new smart phone in order to share that anti-fracking article, climate “activists” should look in the mirror to see what’s really causing environmental harm.

Electronic Waste Is Causing An Environmental Catastrophe Much Worse Than Fracking.

When you get the new iPhone (or solar panel) , where do you think that ends up?

We’ve all seen those ‘e-waste’ recycling kiosks at the entrances of Wall-Mart, so they clearly go to an American recycling facility right?

Wrong.

If climate activists did a little research, they would see that their waste isn’t getting recycled at all.

That’s right, all of those metals you thought were getting recycled are actually just being dumped across the African landscape, poisoning the water and food supplies of millions of individuals.

The clouds of plastic-reeking fumes filling the air with dioxin, while bromide, arsenic, lead, mercury, and other runoff spills into the water, wiping out all the fish, making the water impossible to drink.

The video below was taken almost 10 years ago, and the problem has only gotten worse from there.

We’ve all seen the apocalyptic movies, chilling PSA commercials, and the continuous spike in global temperatures.

Next time you see a climate activist protesting the oil & gas industry with their shiny new iPhone, show them this video.

This is a form of colonialism that isn’t about the environment but rather the hypocrisy of entitled first world “activists” that don’t consider the ramification of their actions.

Most of you have already heard of bitcoin’s phenomenal price rise in recent weeks, or maybe you noticed its big price increase in 2017. Today just one bitcoin sells for an amazing $27,000. But can this new digital currency save the damaged oil & gas industry?

Last week our lead engineer Kurt Mire wrote an open letter to Oil & Gas Investor Magazine editor Steve Toon. Toon’s recent editorial described how the oil & gas industry was being phased out in lieu of renewable energy, essentially waving the white flag for the petroleum industry. A bold move when considering that oil & gas employs hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Here at Vive La Frack! we are committed to promoting 21st- century solutions that leverage new technologies that can both save the environment & preserve the economy. We do not agree with the mainstream media’s contention that we have to move exclusively to renewable (unreliable) energy.

Bitcoin Is Much More Than Only A Digital Coin

The most common description of bitcoin is one of a safe digital currency, but, as with all tech-related concepts, that is only an oversimplification of the truly revolutionary technology.

A better descriptor for how the underlying bitcoin technology could save the oil & gas industry is by thinking of it simply as a timekeeping system, divided into ‘blocks’ of time that store digital files with an ultra-secure and accurate timestamp.

This works well for currency, bitcoin in this example, because every transaction is recorded and is able to be viewed as a measure of trust, but the details of the transaction cannot be seen as a measure of security.

How Can This Tech Save The Dying Oil & Gas Industry?

To save the industry we must acknowledge its problems.

The first issue is that we simply have too much oil, the demand is lower than supply, driving costs and oil company profits down.

The second issue is the mainstream backlash against hydrocarbons and the push to support renewable energy.

The problem with this is we don’t only use petroleum for transportation and electrical power, we use it to produce numerous consumer goods. Here’s a small list:

• Construction materials such as paint, caulking, roofing shingles, asphalt, and pipes
• Protective coatings and waterproofing chemicals
• Safety materials such as hard hats, safety goggles
• Clothing fibers such as nylon, polyester, acrylic, and spandex
• Clothing accessories such as handbags, sunglasses, phone cases, and jewelry
• Household products like cooking tools, domestic appliances, and cleaning products
• Beauty products consisting of nail polish, perfumes, some make-up, and hair coloring
• Personal hygiene products such as soap, toothbrushes, and shampoo
• Nearly all medical machinery in hospitals & medical implants like heart valves and artificial limbs
• Sporting equipment such as surfboards, basketballs, and skate wheels
• All electronics ranging from TVs to computers and cell phones
• Legos, dolls, frisbees, crayons and markers, and balloons are all children’s toys that contain plastics made from oil
• Agricultural fertilizers, herbicides, and insecticides are all oil byproducts (You know, the stuff that makes it possible to feed billions of people worldwide)

So, despite what you see on TV, unless we can use solar cells to power the world, it is not going to be easy to get rid of oil like everyone is predicting.

This is good news. Even if every aspect of transportation energy is phased out of oil & gas to alternatives, oil & gas will still have a future providing materials for all the petroleum-based products on that list.

The Blockchain Solution To Every Oil & Gas Issue

The short answer is efficiency and trust.

Blockchain technology can make every point on the oil & gas logistic chain a finely tuned machine of near-zero resource waste.

Imagine a technology that could help the upstream oil industry to securely, safely, and optimally bring together millions of communication points, organize it all together and achieve a reduction of costs & harmful greenhouse gasses.

What if there were a system in the midstream arena that could perfect the massive logistical nightmare of storing and transporting oil? Or what about a system to handle substantial data processing done for regulatory compliance and environment protection? With blockchain, this becomes a piece of cake. Ethereum Blockchain technology can provide multi-stakeholder information sharing, asset tracking, disaster & risk mitigation, and infrastructure maintenance.

The downstream sector would receive the same benefits mentioned for the other upstream and downstream, but would really see a breakthrough by using a platform with smart legal contracts that can reduce time, energy, and costs. This would help all energy companies and consumers.

I know what you’re thinking – “Sounds fantastic, but how far away are we from achieving this tech in all those commercial ways?”

The Revolutionary Blockchain Technology Of The Future Is Already Being Used

There’s a reason bitcoin is skyrocketing faster than black gold from a gusher: Companies across all industries, not just oil & gas, are already using the crypto-blockchain tech developed a few years ago when bitcoin made its first rising star appearance in the investment world.

Since then thousands of companies have begun investing in blockchain ledgers to not only be innovative, but also to help create the next series of scientific advancements in a shorter amount of time.

Here are some of those companies in our industry:

• BP and Shell have been using a blockchain-based digital platform for energy commodities trading they developed in 2017.
• Petroteq is pioneering a new, greener approach to the dirty process of oil sand extraction in the form of a revolutionary Liquid Extraction System that can extract oil with minimal environmental harm. How minimal? 99% extraction of all hydrocarbons in oil sands while generating zero greenhouse gases and without the use of high temperatures and pressure.
• Schlumberger is using cloud technology to build an “all-in-on”’ digital technology ecosystem ranging from wide-scale system reorganization with hyper-customized interfaces down to fully automated and integrated rig hardware on the ground.

When Will Our Economy See The Benefits From All These Projects That Are In Operation?

It’s Hard to say. Regardless of what I just stated, changing mainstream sentiment and achieving noticeable change will be an uphill battle.

But we are here to tell every single person who is being affected by the decline of the oil & gas industry – do not give up!

There is hope for a future in which all forms of energy can coexist in harmony, using the advantages of both and the incredible technological re-imagining of what is possible.

For those of you who disagree with that statement and would rather live in a bubble of pessimistic doubt about the preservation of one of the most useful and beneficial industries of human civilization, please leave us a comment or send us a direct message on any of our social media platforms and tell us exactly how renewable energy can overcome all of the hurdles I mentioned in this article. Start by reading about the lasting effects Covid-19 will have on oil & gas and how it will come back from this a more lean and efficient industry.

For everyone else rooting for the underdog, thanks for reading and Vive La Frack!

Photo by Worldspectrum from Pexels

The Real Inconvenient Truth: How Current Green Solar Technology Is Not All It’s Cracked Up To Be.

We’ve all seen the apocalyptic movies, chilling PSA commercials, and the continuous spike in global temperatures.

But what are some of the first things that comes to mind when it comes to passing the guilty verdict on what to blame?

• Oil & Gas Drilling?
• Coal Mining?
• Fracking?
• Nuclear Waste?

Sure, all of these things could result in a negative outcome when the proper procedures aren’t followed or if outdated technology is used.

One could even say that every energy source on that list has environmental ramifications to their own degree.

But why do the majority of climate change activists never talk about the abysmal horror of pollutants caused by solar energy panels?

If you thought fracking was bad, wait until you see how ‘green’ solar panels poison our air and water supply.

When you think of solar panels you think of ‘green’ energy, clean, renewable, but where do you think those panels go when they reach their lifetime use?

Surely they get recycled since they have valuable metals inside them right?

Wrong.

See when they started making these they didn’t think about the toxic pollution it would cause, they were hoping to begin new energy sources other than oil & gas because in theory solar panels use Photovoltaic panels that last about 30 years, so it wasn’t like they were in a rush to find out.

Solar panels have been around for awhile, with Jimmy Carter installing one on the White House roof during his presidency, so what happened?

China happened.

Their explosion of manufacturing led to a surge of low quality solar panels being produced cheaply and in mass for profit getting shipped all over the world.

These solar panels in question have large amounts of lead, copper and zinc, which are extremely harmful to the environment when tossed into a landfill.

Since people thought it was better than oil & gas, they bought into it, and china made a killing. Now the truth is coming out about their low quality standards in the panels’ manufacturing process.

These panels have already begun causing a huge environmental crisis in Australia.

I know what you’re thinking, can’t we just recycle them?

It’s A Bird…No, It’s A Plane…Wait, It’s A Photovoltaic Death Ray?

Let’s go ahead and disregard the environmental toxicity that is being ignored when the facts of solar energy are presented, let’s talk about what happens when a technology is put in place with a disregard to it’s long term effects.

The Ivanpah solar plant was a massive undertaking in the mojave dessert, the largest solar production system in the world at the time, with special notes being taken as this was the only one of it’s time, and they were not aware of the long term consequences.

Not only did this cause questionable responses from scientists already concerned from the toxic chemicals used to operate the plant, but upon a few months of operation they could already see that they had accidentally created a death ray from the thousands of solar panels pointing towards the thermal tower.

This beam of energy has caused pilots to reroute their flights out of fears that it could flip the plane and it has caused a countless number of birds to explode when crossing the beams, something the company anticipated by offering $1.8 million (£1m) in compensation for anticipated bird deaths when the site finished construction. 

While this has nothing to do with environmental pollution directly, it must still be taken into account considering all of the variables within the situation.

After all, the fossil fuel market is still very much operational at this point, which makes the pricing less competitive, which factors into how much pollutants are directly and indirectly responsible from utilizing solar energy from its theoretical transition after oil & gas.

It would be simple if we were cavemen looking for an energy source from scratch, but that isn’t the case, the transitional costs and lifetime cycle must be taken into account.

Especially if we don’t have a recycling system in place, and there are already thousands of these panels and power plants sprouting up all over the USA.

If Solar Energy Isn’t The Answer, What Is?

Clearly the oil & gas industry is a cause of pollutants as well, but that isn’t to say we should abandon an entire energy source when we could develop technology that makes it cleaner.

Those ‘climate activists’ you see on TV don’t actually care about the environment, they care about making a stand and looking cool on social media.

If you want to start reducing harm to our planet, i’d start with cutting back on beef consumption, and help foster further clean energy innovations.

Stop demonizing an entire industry that contains a large portion of the United States’ economic backbone, an industry that cannot afford to disappear overnight.

Families rely on those jobs to feed their children.

The byproducts of fracking provide inexpensive heating for low income households across all 50 states, transported there by freight vehicles powered by gasoline.

If we’re going to solve the issue of climate change, we must take serious action and analyze facts from both sides of the argument, then prepare a reasonable plan that places the proper amount of resources into an economic environment that promotes clean energy innovations within the oil & gas industry.

This way we could use the money generated from the economic additive to help our biosphere instead of killing it by destroying the entire energy infrastructure overnight.

Or perhaps climate activists only care about pollution within their own borders, since I’ve heard a lot more negativity towards fracking then objection towards their companies dumping toxic metals that are poisoning food supplies on the Asian Continent and causing the residents to experience multiple organ failures.

Picture Provided By Article On https://stopthesethings.com/2020/10/10/lingering-legacy-millions-of-toxic-solar-panels-that-cant-be-recycled-destined-for-landfills/

Influential Oil & Gas Industry Voices Should Elevate Those Who Champion the Industry and Its Benefits

Dear Mr. Toon,

As a petroleum engineer for nearly 40 years, I’m no stranger to those who believe our industry should fundamentally change or go away entirely. We’re inundated with the supposed “horrors” of oil and gas production, fracking, our inherent and ugly greed, and our inevitable and single-handed destruction of the planet. It’s a difficult pill to swallow, especially while working to provide for ourselves and our families.

Assuredly, our industry isn’t perfect, but its benefits are clear and wide-ranging. Consider how it provides low-cost energy to people around the world, the role it’s played in the decline of poverty rates over the last four decades, the fact that our lifespans are longer than ever, and that climate-related deaths are lower than they’ve ever been in history. 

With that said, it was disheartening to read your latest column, “A New Energy Era,” in the December 2020 edition of Oil & Gas Investor Magazine. There you argue the election of Joe Biden makes America the new leader of the worldwide transition to no carbon fuels. You even called oil and gas “industria non grata.” 

There is no doubt many folks agree with you, and I am not opposed to your opinion that
“hydrocarbon-producing companies need to create strategies and drive a narrative on how the world can continue to use their resources without putting excessive carbon atoms into the atmosphere.” 

However, your magazine may not be the best place for this discussion. Instead, I would
encourage you to promote well-respected academics and thinkers who tout credible positions about the benefits of the oil and gas industry. Consider books “Apocalypse Never” by Michael Shellenberger, “The Moral Case For Fossil Fuels” by Alex Epstein, or “False Alarm” by Bjorn Lomborg.

You can also look to Mark P. Mills, an author, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and McCormick School of Engineering Faculty Fellow at Northwest University, for thoughtful ideas about the impact of fossil fuels and what it would mean to achieve net zero carbon emissions.

Mills said, “Transforming the energy economy is not like putting a few people on the moon a few times. It is like putting all of humanity on the moon – permanently.”

These thinkers reject the premise that eliminating the fossil fuels industry is a noble cause; instead, they tout our industry’s often-downplayed or even ignored benefits, benefits that promote a better quality of life for billions of people around the world. An influential voice such as yours can do the same.

Sincerely,
Kurt Mire P.E.
Principal Engineer
Mire Petroleum Consultants

Photo by Yury Kim from Pexels

By now you’ve probably seen the last presidential debate, where a significant amount of time was spent speaking about the energy industry.

Disclaimer: The purpose of this video isn’t to get political or showcase support for one candidate or the other, both candidates have their downsides just like in every other political election since the agricultural revolution.

Keeping that in mind, we here at Vive La Frack are committed to preserving US energy independence, something that would not have happened unless hydraulic fracking came into production.

We went from maintaining dozens of armed conflicts in the middle east to retain our interest within the massive petroleum deposits in the region, to the number one producer of oil in the world, and 63% of that comes from fracking.

In the debates, we saw Biden take an interesting stance on oil & gas, since only a short time ago he stated his desire to ‘phase out and eliminate’ fossil fuels.

Now he is saying that he never said that, but still during the debate he sang the praises of ‘the fastest growing industry in the US’ that carry high paying jobs.

There is no denying that there is an element of truth to the nature of energy sources that produce zero carbon emissions, it simply is not true when you look at all of the facts about the nature of the technology.

But could this be a byproduct of government interference in the market? After all, renewables were receiving 94 times more in U.S. subsidies than nuclear and 46 times more than fossil fuels in 2016, per unit of energy generated.

If the government is going to cut off all of the subsidies it gave to the oil & gas sector, then it needs to come up with a more efficient plan for the transition, because as it stands there is no plan to replace an entire energy infrastructure with one based on renewables. The numbers just don’t add up.

Biden says that Trumps assessment of renewable energy tech ‘not being quite there yet’ to be false. But solar energy has been around since the 1800s, with proposals to build a giant solar farm already going back as early as 1833.

If the technology for renewable energy has been around for that long, why hasn’t it saved us already? Why didn’t it prevent climate change?

It can’t.

When the facts are there, you can’t deny it, it does not have the technological prowess to transition our entire economy to one with just solar and wind.

Why go through all that trouble when you can innovate technology within the oil & gas industry to reduce carbon emissions and pollutants? Because environmental climate change isn’t just about carbon emissions.

Natural gas is the cleanest burning fossil fuel, and developments within the upstream and downstream sectors can reduce harm, far easier and cost efficiently than transitioning to renewables.

The comparison to coal and oil & gas just is not true, one is far worse than the other, and if there is an innovative new way to gain renewable energy through it, than we’re all ears.

Till that day we will continue to advocate for common sense, and the livelihood of thousands of people in the oil & gas industry that need to feed their families.

Climate change is very real, but that doesn’t mean renewables are the answer.