David Brooks, "The Axis of Ennui": American and Israeli Oil Shale to Alter the Global Balance of Power

Describing the difficulty of generating two columns each week, David Brooks, in his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Axis of Ennui" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/12/opinion/brooks-the-axis-of-ennui.html), informs us that it is not necessarily the hi-tech glitterati who are changing the world or supplying him with ideas. Rather,"the boring old oil and gas engineers" are the ones responsible for a revolution in "global power":

"Daniel Yergin, an energy guru, noted in Congressional testimony last month that the revolution in oil and gas extraction has led to 1.7 million new jobs in the United States alone, a number that could rise to three million by 2020. The shale revolution added $62 billion to federal revenues in 2012. At the same time, carbon-dioxide emissions are down 13 percent since 2007, as gas is used instead of coal to generate electricity.

Most of us have grown up in a world in which we assumed that energy was scarce, or even running out. We could now be entering a world of relatively cheap energy abundance.

Most of us have grown up in a world in which oil states in the Middle East could throw their weight around because of their grip on the economy’s life source. But the power of petro-states is on the wane."

Like Brooks, I believe that oil shale can fuel economic recovery in the US, while also eliminating dependency upon Middle East oil and vastly improving America's trade imbalance.

Unlike Brooks, I worked in the field, and over the course of 30 years, I waited for the technology that would bring value to this abundant resource.

Moreover, Brooks fails to mention that Israel also has huge deposits of oil shale. As reported by Amiram Barkat for Globes (http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000686073&fid=1724):

"'Within a few years, Israel will become one the largest producers of oil and gas in the world.' That is the belief of Dr. Harold Vinegar, who until three years ago was Chief Scientist, Physics, of energy giant Royal Dutch Shell. Talking to 'Globes', Vinegar says that he estimates that exploration for gas will yield impressive results, but that Israel's true future lies in oil. He believes that the chances of finding regular oil are not high, but that huge quantities of oil shale will make it possible to produce oil in quantities approaching the production of Saudi Arabia"

Can you imagine tiny Israel rivaling Saudi Arabia as one of the world's energy giants? Yes, there is still a glimmer of hope for this world.

An Axis of Ennui? As those who know me are aware, there is nothing that I like more than boredom.

You want to send me a birthday present? Please make it a rock.