Impending Record U.S. Crude Oil Production

Vehicle pollution emissions have been going down in Los Angeles but emissions from fires in at least the last year there have been way up. This markedly increases not only particulate pollution but also ozone.

 

No, California ozone is going down markedly and has been for many years. Check out the State of the Air, American Lung Association link a few posts back. One or two year blips in the last couple years don't make a trend and are due to increased fires, weather, etc. specific to that year.

For example, here is ozone with the latest data available:

 

I did. You did not see my other posts. Even the chart you posted showed that was a 2 year blip in a much longer and significant downtrend.

As you can see from the post you reference and the others in this thread, ozone and particulates have been going down in Los Angeles for years (and California at large). We should not take 1-2 years attributable to fires and/or weather or even for any unknown reason to ignore the larger trends.

I've spent most of my life in California and most of that in Los Angeles. I promise you the air has also become visibly much cleaner in a dramatic way.

Here is a good video for those interested into the history of California smog developments and controls:

Not bad except some mention of fool cells.



Here are longer Los Angeles ozone trends; not sure the last two years even register in the noise:

 

Now that California has made such dramatic improvements in pollution over a few decades, there is evidence that our upstream westerly neighbors, unless addressed, will make further reductions very challenging. Fortunately our neighbor China has started addressing the problem so as they improve their dire pollution situation, they will also improve ours:

Smog In Western U.S. Starts Out As Pollution In Asia, Study Says : The Two-Way : NPR

ACP - Abstract - US surface ozone trends and extremes from 1980 to 2014: quantifying the roles of rising Asian emissions, domestic controls, wildfires, and climate

China Exports Pollution to U.S., Study Finds - The New York Times

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.zmescience.com/ecology/environmental-issues/about-29-of-san-franciscos-pollution-comes-from-china-42334/amp/

 

Just saw this post now.

The chart reposted at #51 was for ozone, one of several components of air quality. But there is no ozone unit of measurement, just a somewhat arbitrary number of unhealthy days (see below). So this is why I posted figure b on post #47 to clarify. That chart actually trends ozone concentration over time and shows continued and significant improvement beyond the 1960s to the 1990s. The reposted chart on post #51 makes it look like LA had not improved beyond the trough near the turn of the century at first glance, whereas it clearly did via actual measurements.

The apparent contradiction in charts seems to be explained by the American Lung Association (ALA) using stricter air standards over time.

The EPA has become more stringent in what constitutes bad air quality with regard to ozone over time. According to the methodology section of the ALA, The current national ambient air quality standard for ozone is 70 parts per billion (ppb) measured over eight hours. They continue to follow EPA guidelines including the current 70 ppb standard and the ALA notes they tried to identify the number of days that 8-hour daily maximum concentrations in each county occurred within the defined ranges.

Methodology and Acknowledgements | American Lung Association

But most recently, in 2015 the EPA tightened to this 70 ppb standard.

Based on its review of the air quality criteria for ozone (O3) and related photochemical oxidants and national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for O3, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is revising the primary and secondary NAAQS for O3to provide requisite protection of public health and welfare, respectively. The EPA is revising the levels of both standards to 0.070 parts per million (ppm), and retaining their indicators (O3), forms (fourth-highest daily maximum, averaged across three consecutive years) and averaging times (eight hours).​

https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2015-10-26/pdf/2015-26594.pdf

I probably should not have posted the annual weighted days chart for this reason. It's like telling a runner who is getting faster over time that he really isn't getting better because the time standards are getting tougher.

 

Here's the timeline of the EPA's progressively more stringent O3 standards:

Table of Historical Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) | Ozone Pollution | US EPA


Date: Feb 8, 1979
Indicator: O3
Averaging Time: 1 hour
Level: 0.12 ppm
Form: Attainment is defined when the expected number of days per calendar year, with maximum hourly average concentration greater than 0.12 ppm, is equal to or less than 1

Date: Jul 18, 1997
Indicator: O3
Averaging Time: 8 hours
Level: 0.08 ppm
Form: Annual fourth-highest daily maximum 8-hr concentration, averaged over 3 years

Date: Mar 27, 2008
Indicator: O3
Averaging Time: 8 hours
Level: 0.075 ppm
Form: Annual fourth-highest daily maximum 8-hr concentration, averaged over 3 years

Date: Oct 26, 2015
Indicator: O3
Averaging Time: 8 hours
Level: 0.070 ppm
Form: Annual fourth-highest daily maximum 8 hour average concentration, averaged over 3 years


So, from 1979-1997 ozone standards remained the same. But starting in 1997, they have been tightened 3 times. So without any change in ozone levels, ozone air quality would appear to worsen by this (non)metric. But we have the data above that shows ozone was really always improving with a few small and transient blips along the way.

 

U.S. crude oil is continuing to show very high elasticity, responding rapidly to rising oil prices, without showing any signs of losing steam. The last few months may be the most rapid oil production growth in U.S. history off prior baseline:


Weekly U.S. Field Production of Crude Oil (Thousand Barrels per Day)

 

Should be at 11k barrels per day within 1 week at this rate. Today the EIA reported as of the week ending 06/08 we hit a record 10.9k barrels per day.

 

Fracking technology advanced by ~2010 and insiders seem to believe above $50/barrel it is profitable to do in the States.