1. Chart of the Day I (above) shows another US energy milestone that might be the most remarkable energy and entrepreneurial success story in US history or maybe even world history — the five-fold increase in Texas’ oil production in just a decade. Using conventional drilling technologies, crude oil production in Texas gradually declined from about 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd) to only 1M bpd in the 2000s. That’s about when all of the fears of “peak oil” peaked. But then starting about a decade ago, the advanced Made-in-the-USA drilling and extraction technologies of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling revolutionized America’s oil production, and oil production in Texas increased by more than 5X to more 5M bpd in July of last year before increasing to 5.3M bpd in October. And that turnaround in Texas’s oil output happened completely outside of any official government state-managed/mandated energy policy, and largely outside of the major, multinational integrated oil/gas companies. Kudos and Bravo to the amazing American “petropreneurs” for the 5X increase in Texas oil production in just a decade!
2. Chart of the Day II (above), related to the top chart above, shows the search interest over time of the term “peak oil” from 2004-present based on Google Trends. The search interest in “peak oil” peaked in 2005, and now it’s “peak what”?
3. The 20 Biggest Tech Advances of the Past 20 Years from Alexander C. R. Hammond writing for Human Progress. Despite what you may read in the newspapers or see on TV, humans continue to reach new heights of prosperity. I would have definitely added hydraulic fracturing and even more importantly the overlooked technological marvel of horizontal drilling:
The real marvel is the innovation that has taken place in the realm of Horizontal Drilling. Think about what this advancement has meant just in terms of access to the resources: When drilling into a hydrocarbon bearing formation 100 feet thick, vertical drilling would allow an operator to contact 100 feet of rock, which would limit your potential recovery to whatever oil or gas would flow into that length of pipe. Horizontal Drilling now allows these same operators to drill and set pipe for a mile or more horizontally through this same rock formation. You are now contacting and “Fracking” 5,200 feet of rock rather than 100 feet, which multiplies expected well recovery rates many times over. The technology employed is so advanced and exacting that drillers today can hit a target at the end of a drill string that is 10,000 feet vertical with a mile long horizontal section that is no more than a few inches in diameter. Extraordinary.
4. The Biggest/Dumbest Management Fad/Failure in the Last Decade? Just might be Open-Plan Offices.
5. Six Reasons for Optimism in 2020 from Tyler Brandt writing for FEE. We have much to be grateful for and many reasons to be ecstatic about continued human progress. As Arthur Brooks reminds us “If you’re not grateful for being alive today, you’re not paying attention.” If you’re living today in the US, you’ve won the lottery of life.
6. Chart of the Day III (above) displays another reason to be optimistic and grateful – if you’re living in America today, you have the advantage of being alive during the longest economic expansion in US history — now at 128 months and counting….
7. Interesting Fact of the Day: 9 of the 10 Richest People in the World Are Self-Made Entrepreneurs. Politicians like Bernie, Lieawatha,, and AOC (Karla Marx) want to vilify these entrepreneurial heroes whose personal wealth represents an insignificant fraction of the collective value they’ve created for society and consumers. And they also want to guarantee that there will be fewer of these self-made billionaires in the future by enacting punitive, prohibitive, and confiscatory taxes that will discourage entrepreneurs from taking the risks and putting forth the effort to successfully create enormous value for consumers that will dwarf their potential personal fortunes.
8. Nothing Says Bizarro World Quite Like This. The University of Cincinnati’s Director of Women in Engineering for the Office of Inclusive Excellence announced to the campus in September that only “female, non-binary, and non-cisgender students” would be welcome to attend a series of campus STEM events including a “Welcome Back Kick-Off” event on September 7, an “Evening with Industry” event on September 24, and a “Women in Engineering and Technology Day” on October 18. In other words, a diversity officer in the university’s Office of Inclusive Excellence has excluded 50% of the student body from attending these three events. Not.So.Excellent.
Memo to self: File civil rights complaint immediately against the University of Cincinnati for violating Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination. Done. It’s complaint No. 85. Just imagine the outrage and reaction if a university administrator announced that a series of campus events welcomed everybody on campus except for “female, non-binary, and non-cisgender students.” YIKES!
9. ‘Closing the gender gap’ at any cost threatens the academic integrity of STEM education writes Atilla Sulker in the Washington Examiner:
STEM curricula are deliberately rigorous, as their subjects are not easy, and bridges tend to collapse when things go wrong. This is why there are weed-out classes to discourage students from pursuing them lightly. In general, women earn higher marks, but students trying to maintain a high GPA — something women value more than men — might rather avoid such classes. There is no guarantee that in STEM subjects reasonable effort will earn one an A.
Thus, we should not mistake an individual’s willingness to work hard with fitness for STEM. Rather, it is their ability to cope with the possibility of burnout and lower grades, in addition to hard work, that is the better indicator. The study clearly shows that men express this ability at a higher rate.
The authors’ view presents yet another dilemma. If we are to close the gender gap in STEM, why not also do so in other areas? What if the history, philosophy, and business departments also have this disparity? Why not intervene in every department, every class, and so on? This would create an endless continuum of administrative oversight and indifference to merit.
10. Video of the Day (below) features John Stossel interviewing Sen. Rand Paul on his new book “The Case Against Socialism.”
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