Well, if you know anybody that has their CDL license tell them to get their tanker/hazmat endorsements and be ready to work their butt off and make a truck full of money.

Plus anyone with an extra room to rent out can sit back and make some extra moolah. A room in North Dakota goes from anywhere from 800.00 to 1200.00 a month.

LAST EDITED ON 06-08-12 AT 01:05 PM (EST)

Peeps with space to rent may be the only winners in this. There is a fair amount of concern that most of the money will be made by people who are transferred here for a few years and then sent to the next place, so most of the $$ will leave with them, but at least they will have to rent a home/room and eat while they are here.

May depend on whose estimates you go by, but it sounds like this may be more of a hit and run operation than a settle in for the long haul. At least maybe some of the truckers hired, as well as some of the construction people may be local, but you don't know how much they'll just bring in experienced people from out of state rather than training up what they need here.

North Dakota from some 2009 Maps has some of the larger reserves in the country. NC was one of the states with the lowest, so I don't see this as any kind of long term operation. Because there isn't that much and it is just a few counties I suspect that unless they find a lot more it will pretty easy for them to just close up shop if there gets to be much push back if/when environmental problems arise. http://205.254.135.7/oil_gas/natural_gas/data_publications/crude_oil_natural_gas_reserves/cr.html

ETA: http://www.thepilot.com/news/2012/jun/08/fracking-debate-moves-ahead-despite-new-study-show/ has maps of where there even is anything to possibly frack in the state, and the drop in how many years from 40 to 5.6 based on the more recent analysis.

If it happens there like in N. Louisiana there will be a lot of local land owners that will be giddy rich.

But you're right, 5 years doesn't seem like it it would worth the effort. And that should translate to economic terms, which should discourage a profit minded developer, which should be good news for you.

Chesapeake is the developer in N. La. and in other parts of the country.

That is basically what happened with the hog farms when they came in.

During the Depression (I think) a lot of the share croppers were given small farms. Unfortunately a lot of the land was close to played out and a lot of peeps ended up living in the cities where they could get some job and services but were stuck with a small farm that wasn't in good enough shape to sell as a farm, and too far away from anything for a country estate, but you still had to pay the taxes on.

Then the industrial hog farms came in. They don't need much land, so these small farm plots were just the right size for a couple of barns, a lagoon and some spray fields. They paid well over the going rate for the farms so there was a lot of people more than willing to sell their land.

Really didn't bother many people as most of them were in poor, rural, minority areas. Then they started building them where you could smell them on the Golf Courses in Southern Pines. That opened up a can of trouble. And brought it to the attention of people that they were putting barns and spray fields within a few hundred feet of people's houses.

*waits for the people freaked out by a toilet flush contaminating their tooth brush to think of a spray field on a lightly breezy day next to their house*

There was an anti-fracking protest today, a few counties over. It sounds like someone's trying to get it going near the Delaware River. Major problem for waterway pollution: it'll take out at least two states if they start it here with the option to upgrade depending on how far upstream they kick in.

No idea what the potential yield is in natural gas. Environment damage, however, could equal 'lots'.

... Question: How much money would it take to get actress Katee Sackoff to do a series of sexy PR ads for the natural gas industry.

Hold the vote after the bedtimes of the opposition party.

Hope one of them mashes the wrong button.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/07/03/3357704/state-senate-overrides-gov-perdues.html

Don't worry. By the next session, the buttons will be disconnected.

Oh, frack.

. . . at least, as long as the procedures are followed.

http://phys.org/news/2012-07-fracking-undertaken-safely-effective.html

So you are saying they will be the first and only to actually follow the procedures once they are allowed to operate in NC?

We've not had much luck with companies following procedures as they'd rather pay the fines and lawsuits after they get caught doing it the cheap way rather than according to procedure. Even in the long term it seems cheaper to do it the polluting way.

But I might be cynical.

I'm the cynic.

Do you use natural gas? Is it used in NC?

If so, there shouldn't an objection with mining it in your state. I have a problem with the selfishness and hypocrisy of states that are consumers of gas and oil and yet aren't willing to let it be mined in their state. Off shore included.

Just about all types of mining have potential safety and pollution problems that can associated with them, including the refining, transportation and distribution aspects.

My position would be if drilling and production is banned, utilization should also be banned.

It is important however to have sufficient regulations to keep the producers honest and workers safe.

LAST EDITED ON 07-12-12 AT 10:13 PM (EST)

That's mostly the problem. This state is very bad about regulating and enforcing the rules.

You really think a legislature that is becoming famous for unusual voting procedures...Why can't they ever put anything to a vote while the sun is up? Are they are vampires? Anyway they gotta play games to get stuff passed you really think they are in any way interested in making corporations play fair and by the rules?

ETA: And I have personal experience of just how many times my relatives have had to sue gas and oil drillers because they apparently are constitutionally incapable of following the regulations or even basic ideas of fairness. /edit.

I'm not generally against mining/drilling but so far I really haven't seen much in the way of effective or even sufficient regulation in this state of any industry. If they had any interest in ever having oversight of anything...

Too much let them do what they want and if they mess something up fine them just enough to screw the end user but not effect in any way the profits made by the top executives.

Heck did you hear about our electricity merger? The CEO for a day got a $44 million severance package. I'm sure the quit before the merger pay out was a heck of a lot less.

I'll quit any job after one day for $4 million.

You do need effective regulations and enforcement as well as competent (and honest) legislatures.

A pet peeve of mine are the states that utilize products from the oil and gas industry yet refuse to allow drilling and production. California and their off shore prohibitions heads the list of hypocrites IMO.

You've misread what happened in the Duke Energy merger.

Basically, Duke Energy wanted to take over Progress Energy, but Progress Energy didn't trust Duke and refused.

So Duke offered to make the Progress CEO the CEO of the merged company, which led Progress to agree to the merger.

Because Duke was larger, it gotr two-thirds of the board seats in the merged company.

Then the former Duke directors voted as a bloc, on the day the merger went into effect, to fire the Progress CEO and bring back the Duke CEO as the CEO of the merged company. In other words, Duke's directors pre-planned a Duke takeover and lied about it.

That's a blatant securities law violation. But the Duke CEO is a BIG Obama contributor, and he expects the Feds to look the other way.

He may be right. After all, Obama=crook.

Quit, fired, still I'm not sure he would have gotten the $44 million the day before the merger. I'm sure he would have gotten something.

Still, I'll get fired after one day of a new job/promotion for a lot less than that.

There seems to be equal outrage between the concept that they did a bait and switch over who would run the monsterously large mergered corp and how much the guy got paid off for his 1 day of service.

I'm not sure any administration would do anything about this, of any party. But there is that cynical thing again. Do you really think McCain or Palin would have done anything, or that Romney would?

Romney would have known to skim ten percent.

LAST EDITED ON 07-13-12 AT 02:27 PM (EST)

Your comment indicates to me that you still don't understand what went on. Duke Power basically paid Progress CEO Bill Johnson a huge amount of money in an effort to shut him up.

The reason those huge penalties were put into the deal were to block the former Duke directors from doing exactly what they did. Instead, Duke treated the payout to Johnson as part of the cost to acquire Progress Energy outright.

Had they known what was going to happen, there is no doubt in my mind that the Progress Energy directors would not have proceeded with the merger. You seem to dismiss this or treat it as a joke. It's not. What it is is fraud.

People who commit fraud should go to jail. Yes, that means former/new Duke CEO Jim Rogers, as well as his fellow Duke directors. And the merger should be nullified, as it was facilitated through fraud.

Yes, I do think a Romney-led Justice Department would make that happen. No, I don't think an Obama-led Justice Department will make that happen. Heck, I expect Obama to give Rogers a Presidential medal for creativity instead.

Edited to add: I'm not sure that a McCain-led Justice Department would understand the deal well enough to make that happen, though. Or that it even would have been competent enough to make that happen.

Holder is too busy selling weapons to the drug cartels to worry about a little thing like that.

Probably true. Or, at least, too busy covering up.

The Duke Energy deal is proof that what we needed wasn't a new law (the dreadful Dodd-Frank fiasco) but rather enforcement of the laws already on the books. Securities fraud is illegal. But Jim Rogers and his Duke Energy board pulled a blatant fraud, of a kind that's been illegal since at least 1934 and expect to get away with it scot-free.

And they probably will.

The reason I think Romney would be better to deal with this than Obama is that Romney would understand the fraud. When you deliberately lie to someone to make a deal, that's fraud.

This deal wouldn't have been made as a takeover, because the Progress Energy board wasn't comfortable with Duke Energy. Duke's idea was basically to lie about its intentions and then pay hush money to Bill Johnson to quiet the inevitable lawsuits. We'll see how well that works out.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/07/06/uproar-over-c-e-o-s-ouster-at-merged-energy-giant/

For his part, Mr. Johnson has received a lucrative exit package, according to a securities filing. He will receive payments of about $44 million, which includes a $7.4 million severance. He receives a lump-sum payment of $1.5 million so long as he does not disparage Duke and cooperates with the company.

But others aren't keeping quiet. Duke just expects that no one will listen to them.

“It was a critical element in the merger deliberations of our board because we had confidence that Bill would successfully lead the combined companies,” Mr. Mullin said.

“I do not believe that a single director of Progress would have voted for this transaction” had Mr. Rogers been kept in place as Duke’s chief executive, he wrote.

The holder/Obama Justice Department also has been pretty busy with the important work of trying to find Clemens guilty of lying about using steroids (the Gov't lost the case), or of Nancy Black for lying about feeding whales. You can only expect so much of incompetent boobs.

Government in Action
-- Big Fish: The U.S. Department of Justice has been widely criticized for failing to bring to fruition investigations of Wall Street traders' alleged lies (such as accusations that the firm MFS Global made bets on European bonds by illegally using clients' money, of which CEO Jon Corzine suspiciously professed to be unaware). However, in several notable instances, its investigators have been relentless -- for instance, prosecuting baseball's Roger Clemens for lying to Congress and, in January, indicting marine biologist Nancy Black, who faces 20 years in prison for allegedly lying to investigators about whether her crew might have illegally fed whales to attract their attention for a boatload of whale-watchers.

http://tinyurl.com/73l9vpy

Generally most people's including mine, understanding of the deal was that something fishy has been going on from the get go and there of course is fraud involved at all levels of it.

I'm also cynical enough to believe that the corporations involved have enough money, especially combined, that they will buy off anyone who even looks like they are going to win their election (or super pac whoever they need into office) and there really isn't anything anyone in the country can do about it anymore.

Wanna hear cynical...Might as well change the Constitution to We the Incorporated as I don't think there is any way we the people will get the power back. Well I suppose we could storm the corporate office, but they'd just have us all arrested.

I'm still one of the little people that is going to have to pay off that severance package as well as the merger and should there ever be any repercussions the fines, the lawyers and everything else with my rate increases. So if joking about it keeps me from crying...well too bad.

>I'm still one of the little people that is going to
>have to pay off that severance package as well as
>the merger and should there ever be any repercussions the
>fines, the lawyers and everything else with my rate increases.
> So if joking about it keeps me from crying...well too bad.

That's what ticks me off so much about this deal. Basically, Duke stole funds from its customers to overpay for Progress, and then its customers are also going to pay for Duke's legal defense bills.

That's also why nothing other than jail time will discouraqge such fraud. Fines don't hurt Duke. They'll just pass them through to you. But jail terms . . . .

... and one should be enough.