Published: March 12, 2009 07:47 am      

In These Otsego Hills

Earlier this year, we were sent two articles which appeared in the January 19, 2009 edition of the Oil & Gas Journal. And while this is obviously not a publication we read on a regular basis, we did find the two articles of interest.

The first, entitled ``CNX Gas drills record Marcellus shale well’’ and written by Nana M. Rach, Drilling Editor, concerns ``...hundreds of coalbed, methane wells in the Appalachian basin...’’ which were drilled in southwestern Pennsylvania.

We gather from the article that these wells, which were the first horizontal Marcellus shale wells drilled by CNX, have proved to be quite successful. In fact, according to the article ``On Dec. 15, CNX reported that the well was producing 6.5 MMcfd of natural gas.

``A record daily production rate for any well in the company’s history and believed to be among the highest reported by any Marcellus shale producer,’’ said the company in a press release.’’ We suspect that those in this area of the world opposed to natural gas drilling would not find this news of particular comfort.

In the second article, entitled ``US, world possess rich resource base’’ and written by Khosrow Biglarbigi and Hitesh Mohan, both of Intek Inc., Arlington, VA and James Killen, US Department of Energy, Washington, DC, we learned that ``Oil shale is a hydrocarbon-bearing rock that occurs in nearly 100 major deposits in 27 countries. In-place hydrocarbons contained in the shales may exceed 10 trillion bbl.’’

The article quite clearly points out that in the United States, the best shale deposits for oil shale production in the immediate future are found in the western states of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.

However, the article also concludes that ``...eastern shale has the potential to become an important addition to US unconventional fuel supplies.’’ It further adds: ``With processing technology advances, for example the addition of hydrogen to the retorting process, potential oil yields could approach those of western shale.’’

We must say we were most interested in the conclusions reached by the article concerning gas drilling in the east. The article reads:

``Eastern shale has some advantage over the western shale. Five of these are: 1. Eastern shale is closer to major demand centers and this would reduce transportation costs.

2. Companies could move the liquid produced by barge to a refinery for processing. This would eliminate the need for local upgrading and for constructing large new pipelines.

3. Because the resource is diverse, eastern shale development should have fewer associated environmental problems.

4. Because the eastern area is more populated, the area should have fewer infrastructure and socio-economic problems than in the west.

5. The eastern states also have numerous coal mines and industrial plants, so that public acceptance and permitting of oil shale facilities may be easier. We must say that we had several responses to this set of conclusions. However, insulting is the only printable one. For those who may be interested, both of these articles can be found online at www. ogj.com/index.cfm.

We were somewhat surprised at the response we received to our thoughts of last week concerning the teaching of grammar. We were amazed at the number of people who told us they felt their grasp of grammar was inadequate. We were equally surprised by those who told us that blaming poor grammar on the internet was a cop out. We must say we hadn’t given a great deal of thought to the internet angle when it comes to grammar. However, having now done so, we must say we find the argument somewhat offensive.

After all, we, and all the other columnists who write for the Cooperstown Crier, can be found on the internet. And we would truly like to think that none of us present a poor example when it comes to writing. Naturally we all make mistakes. But overall we think all the columnists do a good job, presenting the columns in a straight forward, easy to read and understand, informative and, hopefully at times, humorous fashion.

And although we certainly cannot speak for our fellow columnists, we would not like to think our offerings should be used as part of the explanation for poor grammar in the school system. In fact, there are times when we would tend to think that simply diagramming our sentences would be most challenging. At least we hope that would be the case.

Therefore, instead of trying to figure out who or what is responsible for the lack of grammar in our schools, we would think it far more productive to discuss how best it might be improved. To that end, we would like to suggest that improvement in the area of writing would be greatly helped by both more reading and writing on the part of students.

Reading broadens one’s exposure to all sorts of writing styles, whether they are fiction or non-fiction. And writing gives one the opportunity to explore how sentences fit together to express ideas and support positions. Understanding the rules of grammar will only help to make the process more pleasant.

We would also suggest reading one’s written work out loud. If it sounds bad, it probably is. But knowing that gives one the opportunity to rework the piece and improve the writing. And, perhaps, most important of all, we would suggest sleeping on any written piece.

Going through it a second time, working out any problems, will always make for a better written piece. And, of course, we always find that proof readers can be most helpful as they tend to read what we write, not what we think we write. And sometimes that does make a big difference.

In closing, we must admit that we have found ourselves to be quite taken with the 2008 movie ``Mamma Mia.’’ In fact, we watched it three times this past weekend. We thought it to be a riot. We found it to be too funny. And we felt it made us feel like we were 29 again. And watching the movie, which included the ABBA song ``Dancing Queen,’’ was definitely better than reading the e-mail we received which renamed a number of songs including ``Dancing Queen’’ which became ``Denture Queen.’’

That made us feel like we were 129.

We remain, In these Otsego hills, The Ellsworths The Ellsworths may be reached by mail at 105 Pioneer Street, Cooperstown, NY 13326, by telephone at 607-547-8124 or by e-mail at cellsworth1@stny. rr.com. They look forward to hearing from you.