Bethany McLean discusses her new book which you can purchase here: https://www.strandbooks.com/product/s… The technology of fracking in shale rock — particularly in the Permian Basin in Texas — has transformed America into the world’s top producer of both oil and natural gas. The U.S. is expected to be “energy independent” and a “net exporter” in less than a decade, a move that will upend global politics, destabilize Saudi Arabia, crush Russia’s chokehold over Europe, and finally bolster American power again. Or Will it?
Investigative journalist and bestselling author Bethany McLean digs deep into the cycles of boom and bust that has plagued the American oil industry for the past decade, from the financial wizardry and mysterious death of fracking pioneer Aubrey McClendon, to the speculators who are betting on America’s ascendance and the collapse of OPEC in the great game of geopolitics. McLean finds that fracking is a business built on attracting ever-more gigantic amounts of capital investment, while promises of huge returns have often not borne out. Overeagerness in partaking in a boom can lead to all types of problems and just as she did with the Enron story, in Saudi America McLean points out the reality and the risks of the inflated promises of the fracking boom.
Saudi America, feat. Bethany McClean
Global I.Q. Minute explores global oil markets with Bethany McClean, author of “Saudi America: The Truth About Fracking and How It’s Changing the World.”
How The United States Got Hooked On Foreign Oil
The United States is predicted to become a net energy exporter by 2020. This will be the first time since 1953 that the country exports more fossil fuels than it imports. For almost a century prior, the United States of America was the largest oil producer in the world. So how did the United States get hooked on foreign oil.
Every American president since Richard Nixon has pledged energy independence as a way to strengthen us geopolitically, make us more secure, or boost our economy.
The story of American oil begins in 1859 in Titusville, Pennsylvania. Small amounts of oil had seeped from the ground for a long time, but no one knew how to extract it. Until, Edwin Laurentin Drake, a former conductor, was hired. After many failed attempts, he finally struck gold — black gold.
The next FEW decades, major oil finds in Texas, California and Oklahoma contributed to U.S. emergence as a major economic power. The 1901 Spindletop gusher in Texas nearly tripled U.S. oil production.
Henry Ford’s Model T invention in 1908 – the first mass-produced car – made America the most motorized country in the world. Other industrialized countries like France, Britain and Germany were ways behind.
Did airlines fly their aircraft slower in response to oil prices in the 1970s?
Modern airliners generally have lower cruise speeds than those of comparable aircraft from 40 years ago (the venerable Boeing 737 seems to be something of an exception; it has always had a more leisurely cruise speed).
Airlines had to respond much faster to the oil crisis than manufacturers could – to what extent were airlines able to economise on fuel consumption by flying more slowly, and what sort of margin was available to them at cruise (and by extension, what sort of margin is available in modern aircraft, should economic factors drive operators to seek lower fuel consumption by flying more slowly)?
As a French who grew up in the Caribbean, I can tell that flights are getting longer. A flight between France and my island that took 7.5 hours 15 years ago is almost 9 hours long today.
This post published by the MIT’s School of Engineering says (emphasis mine):
Specified cruising speeds for commercial airliners today range between about 480 and 510 knots, compared to 525 knots for the Boeing 707, a mainstay of 1960s jet travel. Why? “The main issue is fuel economy,” says Aeronautics and Astronautics professor Mark Drela. “Going faster eats more fuel per passenger-mile. This is especially true with the newer ‘high-bypass’ jet engines with their large-diameter front fans.”
Today’s high bypass engines are more efficient at low speed:
Observant fliers can easily spot these engines, with air intakes nearly 10 feet across, especially on newer long-range two-engine jetliners. Older engines had intakes that were less than half as wide and moved less air at higher speeds; high-bypass engines achieve the same thrust with more air at lower speed by routing most of the air (up to 93 percent in the newest designs) around the engine’s turbine instead of through it. “Their efficiency peaks are at lower speeds, which causes airplane builders to favor a somewhat slower aircraft”
This article also states that slower aircraft’s structures are cheaper to build:
“A slower airplane can also have less wing sweep, which makes it smaller, lighter and hence less expensive.” The 707’s wing sweep was 35 degrees, while the current 777’s is 31.6 degrees.