George P. Mitchell: the father of tracking
THE United States has of late been in a slough of despond. The mood is reflected in a spate of books with gloomy titles such as “That Used to Be Us” (Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum) and “Time to Start Thinking: America in the Age of Descent” (Edward Luce). For the first time in decades the majority of Americans think their children will be worse off than they are. Yankee can-do optimism is in danger of congealing into European nothing-can-be-done negativism.
There are good reasons for this. The political system really is “even worse than it looks”, as another doom-laden book puts it. Middle-class living standards have stagnated. The Iraq war turned into a debacle. But the pessimists are ignoring a mighty force pushing in the opposite direction: America’s extraordinary capacity to reinvent itself. No other country produces as many world-changing new companies in such a variety of industries: not just in the new economy of computers and the internet but also in the old economy of shopping, manufacturing and energy.
George Mitchell, who died on July 26th [2013], was a one-man refutation of the declinist hypothesis. From the 1970s America’s energy industry reconciled itself to apparently inevitable decline. Analysts produced charts to show that its oil and gas were running out. The big oil firms globalised in order to survive. But Mr Mitchell was convinced that immense reserves trapped in shale rock deep beneath the surface could be freed. He spent decades perfecting techniques for unlocking them: injecting high-pressure fluids into the ground to fracture the rock and create pathways for the trapped oil and gas (fracking) and drilling down and then sideways to increase each well’s yield (horizontal drilling).
The result was a revolution.
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Read the entire article here:
http://www.economist.com/news/busines...
There are good reasons for this. The political system really is “even worse than it looks”, as another doom-laden book puts it. Middle-class living standards have stagnated. The Iraq war turned into a debacle. But the pessimists are ignoring a mighty force pushing in the opposite direction: America’s extraordinary capacity to reinvent itself. No other country produces as many world-changing new companies in such a variety of industries: not just in the new economy of computers and the internet but also in the old economy of shopping, manufacturing and energy.
George Mitchell, who died on July 26th [2013], was a one-man refutation of the declinist hypothesis. From the 1970s America’s energy industry reconciled itself to apparently inevitable decline. Analysts produced charts to show that its oil and gas were running out. The big oil firms globalised in order to survive. But Mr Mitchell was convinced that immense reserves trapped in shale rock deep beneath the surface could be freed. He spent decades perfecting techniques for unlocking them: injecting high-pressure fluids into the ground to fracture the rock and create pathways for the trapped oil and gas (fracking) and drilling down and then sideways to increase each well’s yield (horizontal drilling).
The result was a revolution.
------------------------------------
Read the entire article here:
http://www.economist.com/news/busines...
George was quite a guy. A real wild catter.
He was a real life model of Ellis Wyatt.
He didn't develop it all himself but he hired the best people he could find and encouraged them to push the envelope.
While developing the fracking process in the 70s and 80s he also bought about 80 square miles of forest land north of Houston and created his own Gulch, a new town called The Woodlands.
(He single handedly drove up land prices. When people saw George's initials on documents they thought General Motors was buying property.)
Observing George in a business meeting was sometimes like a scene from Atlas Shrugged.
The Economist article is a very biased view of Mitchell that emphasizes a small part of his character. Its almost an apology for what George accomplished.
George had most of the positive qualities that people attribute to Donald Trump ... unlike Trump.
RIP Mr. Mitchell.
http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20...
one of those expressions that do not mean what the words mean but (like Alice) means what the speaker intends.
Compare- Friends of Global Progress, Progressivism.
Ask this question of anyone who believes in Sustainability-
The number of voters taking (I've seen 47% for the US)
is outpacing the number of voters contributing.
Is this sustainable?