Part 23 (1/2)

Billy Bob paused the video before Book could raise his hand.

'Do you recycle your frack fluid?' Book asked.

'Slick water. And no. Too d.a.m.n expensive.'

'What do you do with it?'

'Pump it down disposal wells.'

'What's a disposal well?'

'Deep salt-water wells. We dump everything from sewage to radioactive substances down those holes-'

'Like frack fluids?'

'-stuff the law won't allow to be disposed in rivers and streams. We got fifty-two thousand disposal wells in Texas, more than any other state.'

'Is that something to brag about? That we're putting more toxic chemicals into the earth than any other state?'

'Don't worry, Professor. The Railroad Commission regulates what goes down the hole.'

'Why doesn't that make me feel better?'

Billy Bob resumed the video.

'The whole process of developing a well typically takes from three to five months. A few weeks to prepare the site, four to six weeks to drill the well, and then one to three months of completion activities, which includes one to seven days of stimulation. But this three-to five-month investment can result in a well that will produce oil or natural gas for twenty to forty years or more.'

Billy Bob ended the video. He sighed wistfully. 'I love that movie.'

As if he had just watched Casablanca.

'I take it that video wasn't put out by the Sierra Club?' Book said.

'Marathon Oil. Put it on YouTube.'

Billy Bob Barnett seemed satisfied with his defense of fracking. But Book wanted him to continue, in the hope that he would over-talk, as guilty witnesses often felt compelled to do. Thus, another provocative question was called for, an inquiry that called into question the validity of his life's work, which is to say, his manhood.

'Billy Bob, is it really worth it?'

'Is what worth what?'

'Fracking. I mean, it's a huge environmental controversy, here and around the world. Is it really worth fighting over?'

Billy Bob's face registered an expression of absolute dis belief. He pointed at the screen on the wall.

'Did you hear what he just said? Twenty to forty years, Professor. Twenty to forty years of turning the lights on, cooking on the stove, heating and cooling your home, watching reality shows on TV ... twenty to forty years of electricity. Unless you want to live in the dark, it's d.a.m.n sure worth fighting for.'

His face glowed red.

'Why not solar and wind power?'

Billy Bob rolled his eyes. 'You liberals think the sun and the wind can do it all. They can't. Not yet. I want us to be energy independent, too, Professor, so I'm all for solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, you name it. Anything that'll get us off Muslim oil. And maybe in twenty or thirty years those technologies will be able to power the planet or at least America. But not today. Oil, gas, and coal supply eighty-five percent of our energy today. And we need energy today. Easy to sit in your ivy tower-'

'Ivory. Like the elephant tusk, not ivy like the plant.'

'Oh.' He rebooted his thought. 'Easy to sit in your ivory tower and preach your liberal politics, but what'll happen to America when the Muslims decide to sell their oil to the Chinese instead of us 'cause they'll pay more? When we don't have the energy to power our factories and light our homes? Our cars, trains, and planes? What happens to America then, Professor?'

Billy Bob stood and walked over to the U.S. map on the side wall. They followed.

'Current estimate is that we've got a hundred years' supply of natural gas in North America.' He pointed the cigar at shaded areas on the map. 'The big shale plays are the Horn River and Montney up in Canada, the Barnett-no relation-Eagle Ford, and the Woodford in Texas, Haynesville in Louisiana, Fayetteville in Arkansas, and the big daddy of them all, the Marcellus Shale. That one field covers ninety-five thousand square miles of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, contains two-thirds of U.S. reserves.'

'I thought they put a moratorium on fracking in New York?'

Billy Bob nodded. 'Vermont, too, even though no one's found shale gas in the state. Said it was a show of solidarity. Goofy liberals.'

He now stepped to the world map and again used the cigar as a pointer.

'Shale gas has been found in northern UK and Europe-Poland, Austria, Sweden, Romania, Germany, France ...'

'Didn't the French ban fracking?'

He shrugged. 'They're French.'

Billy Bob pointed the cigar at other nations.

'China, they've got more recoverable shale gas than us, about thirteen hundred trillion cubic feet. Argentina, they've got almost eight hundred. Mexico, seven hundred. South Africa, five hundred. Australia, four hundred. And all that shale gas requires hydraulic stimulation. That's our technology. We're not outsourcing American jobs, Professor, we're creating American jobs by outsourcing our technology. Our hydraulic stimulation is taking over the world.'

'Like our fast food?'

'Except it's better for you. Gas is good, Professor.'

Billy Bob held up one finger.

'It's cleaner than coal and safer than nuclear. Right now we're using mostly coal-fired plants to generate electricity. We switch over to natural gas, greenhouse gases are cut in half. And we don't risk a Chern.o.byl or f.u.kus.h.i.+ma.'

A second finger.

'It's cheap and abundant. The same amount of energy from gas costs one-fourth what it takes in oil to produce. And we've identified twenty-five thousand trillion cubic feet of extractable gas in the world-outside the Middle East. That's enough to power the world on natural gas alone for fifty years.'

A third finger.

'It's ours, not the Arabs'. Right now we're sending a trillion dollars a year to Muslims who want to kill us. We get off Muslim oil, we keep one trillion dollars a year, every year, here at home. It's simple: drill at home or get killed at home.'

A fourth finger.

'Jobs. The world is starving for jobs, Professor, and hydraulic stimulation provides jobs. Lots of jobs. But Ivory League-educated environmentalists-'

'No, that one is Ivy.'

'But you just said ... never mind. Liberal environmentalists drive around in their Priuses and don't give a d.a.m.n about the unemployed working cla.s.s. People are desperate for jobs. We got workers living in man camps in shale plays all over the country.'