<story><title>A $900B Oil Treasure Lies Beneath West Texas Desert</title><url>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-15/permian-s-wolfcamp-holds-20-billion-barrels-of-oil-u-s-says</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>SwellJoe</author><text>Given the water situation in most of Texas, I find it unbelievable that anyone is still pushing oil, especially shale oil, as an energy option anywhere in Texas. And, yet, all those old oil barons are still pushing that agenda, and still controlling the narrative at every level of government.&lt;p&gt;That same desert could house miles of solar panels and miles of wind farms. But, very few people are pushing &lt;i&gt;that&lt;/i&gt; solution to the energy problem, even though it is now price-competitive with fossil fuels to do so in places like Texas, where both wind and sun are plentiful almost year round.</text></item><item><author>sulam</author><text>Keep in mind that this is oil which needs to be horizontally drilled for, meaning fracking. Fracking has destroyed water tables because of the chemicals used and been linked to earthquakes in Canada. Not to mention that it is very intensive in terms of water use.&lt;p&gt;But of course, while the oil is running there are lots of jobs created, at least until OPEC decides they&amp;#x27;ve had enough and drives the price of oil back down.&lt;p&gt;Since this is Texas, I&amp;#x27;m pretty sure the local community won&amp;#x27;t worry about this stuff much (I grew up in Texas and have relatives who live just north of this field&amp;#x27;s extent). Hopefully the benefits will outweigh the costs for them -- it&amp;#x27;s not clear that this has been the case for North Dakota.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hueving</author><text>Oil doesn&amp;#x27;t have the same use cases as electricity. Until we have electric planes, ships, heavy trucks, farm equipment and freight trains, there is still a big place for oil in transportation.&lt;p&gt;Also, until we get some good energy storage solutions, we are just going to run into the same problems of too much electricity during the middle of the day and not enough in the evening.</text></comment>
<story><title>A $900B Oil Treasure Lies Beneath West Texas Desert</title><url>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-15/permian-s-wolfcamp-holds-20-billion-barrels-of-oil-u-s-says</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>SwellJoe</author><text>Given the water situation in most of Texas, I find it unbelievable that anyone is still pushing oil, especially shale oil, as an energy option anywhere in Texas. And, yet, all those old oil barons are still pushing that agenda, and still controlling the narrative at every level of government.&lt;p&gt;That same desert could house miles of solar panels and miles of wind farms. But, very few people are pushing &lt;i&gt;that&lt;/i&gt; solution to the energy problem, even though it is now price-competitive with fossil fuels to do so in places like Texas, where both wind and sun are plentiful almost year round.</text></item><item><author>sulam</author><text>Keep in mind that this is oil which needs to be horizontally drilled for, meaning fracking. Fracking has destroyed water tables because of the chemicals used and been linked to earthquakes in Canada. Not to mention that it is very intensive in terms of water use.&lt;p&gt;But of course, while the oil is running there are lots of jobs created, at least until OPEC decides they&amp;#x27;ve had enough and drives the price of oil back down.&lt;p&gt;Since this is Texas, I&amp;#x27;m pretty sure the local community won&amp;#x27;t worry about this stuff much (I grew up in Texas and have relatives who live just north of this field&amp;#x27;s extent). Hopefully the benefits will outweigh the costs for them -- it&amp;#x27;s not clear that this has been the case for North Dakota.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>BurningFrog</author><text>Unless I vastly underestimate how much land oil extraction uses, that land could &lt;i&gt;still&lt;/i&gt; house miles of solar panels and miles of wind farms.</text></comment>