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Natural Born Fools

Dr. Paul Krugman, a Nobel laureate and professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton, wrote this in his Op-Ed, entitled "Natural Born Drillers":
And this tells us that giving the oil companies carte blanche isn’t a serious jobs program. Put it this way: Employment in oil and gas extraction has risen more than 50 percent since the middle of the last decade, but that amounts to only 70,000 jobs, around one-twentieth of 1 percent of total U.S. employment. So the idea that drill, baby, drill can cure our jobs deficit is basically a joke.

Why, then, are Republicans pretending otherwise? Part of the answer is that the party is rewarding its benefactors: the oil and gas industry doesn’t create many jobs, but it does spend a lot of money on lobbying and campaign contributions. The rest of the answer is simply the fact that conservatives have no other job-creation ideas to offer. His piece was followed by 554 reader comments, many of which read like this:
...They (the R…

Why such a long silence?

I am guilty of not writing for almost five months, and I feel bad.  Teaching, being a department chair, a fundraiser in chief, getting major research contracts started, trying to write those papers, appear in public, etc., while remodeling my home and trying to spend some time with my family and friends did this to me.

And then I had to remind myself that I must think positively, so that I would not scare my readers and listeners more than necessary.  There has been enough bad news and failures around us, people are stunned and scared, and the last thing they need is more scaremongering.  Let's leave it to Newt.

On the opposite extreme, I was really unnerved by the sunshine forecasts of ever-increasing hydrocarbon production and prosperity in the U.S.  - with no extra effort. These forecasts are based on self-serving delusions, denial and ignorance, and are incredibly dangerous to the well-being of our great country. 

So how do I become a reassuring guide, who at the same time do…

Frac water versus all water in Pennsylvania

In Part II of his work, "Wastewater Recycling No Cure-All in Gas Process," published by NYT on March 1, 2011, Mr. Ian Urbina states that 
[I]n the year and a half that ended in December 2010, well operators reported recycling at least 320 million gallons. But at least 260 million gallons of wastewater were sent to plants that discharge their treated waste into rivers, out of a total of more than 680 million gallons of wastewater produced, according to state data posted Tuesday. First, 320+260=580, not 680, as Mr. Urbina writes, but that's a minor problem.  Second, let's do the arithmetic:

580 million gallons of wastewater over 1.5 years is equal to 580/1.5/365=1.06 million gallons of wastewater per day, on the average.  Out of this volume of water, 320/1.5/365=0.58 million gallons of water per day was recycled, and the remaining 0.48 million gallons of water per day was sent to water purification plants for processing and discharge into rivers.

Now, let's com…