An action thriller by Jock Miller


Fossil fuel has an ageless affinity with dinosaurs. To create oil, dinosaurs died.


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The perfect energy storm is sweeping over the United States: Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown has paralyzed nuclear expansion globally, BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill has stalled deep water drilling, Arab oil countries are in turmoil causing doubt about access to future oil, the intensity of hurricanes hitting the Gulf’s oil rigs and refineries has intensified due to global warming, and the nation’s Strategic Oil Supply is riding on empty.

As the energy storm intensifies, the nation’s access to Arab oil, once supplying over sixty percent of our fossil fuel, is being threatened causing people to panic for lack of gas at the pumps, stranding cars across the country and inciting riots.

The U.S. Military is forced to cut back air, land, and sea operations sucking up 58% of every barrel of oil to protect the nation; U.S. commercial airlines are forced to limit flights for lack of jet fuel; and businesses are challenged to power up their factories, and offices as the U.S. Department of Energy desperately tries to provide a balance of electric power from the network of aged power plants and transmission lines that power up the nation.

The United States must find new sources of domestic fossil fuel urgently or face an energy crisis that will plunge the nation into a deep depression worse than 1929.

The energy storm is very real and happening this very moment. But, at the last moment of desperation, the United States discovers the world’s largest fossil fuel deposit found in a remote inaccessible mountain range within Alaska’s Noatak National Preserve surrounding six and a half million acres.

Preventing access to the oil is a colony of living fossil dinosaurs that will protect its territory to the death.

Nobody gets out alive; nobody can identify the predator--until Dr. Kimberly Fulton, Curator of Paleontology at New York’s Museum of Natural History, is flown into the inaccessible area by Scott Chandler, the Marine veteran helicopter pilot who’s the Park’s Manager of Wildlife. All hell breaks loose when Fulton’s teenage son and his girlfriend vanish into the Park.

Will the nation’s military be paralyzed for lack of mobility fuel, and will people across America run out of gas and be stranded, or will the U.S. Military succeed in penetrating this remote mountain range in northwestern Alaska to restore fossil fuel supplies in time to save the nation from the worst energy driven catastrophe in recorded history?

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Beware $90 oil




by Nin-Hai Tseng, writer-reporter

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com

With high unemployment, weak consumer spending and falling home prices, what else could possibly slow America's economic recovery? Oil prices.

Though prices have retreated a bit since, crude oil climbed above $90 a barrel on Tuesday – its highest level in two years. Futures rose by 1.5% to trade as high as $90.76 in New York, according to Bloomberg.

Why should we care? The development alone certainly won't pull the economy back into a recession, but it's an indicator to start watching closely, says James Hamilton, economist with the University of California in San Diego. Hamilton, who has done extensive research on oil shocks and business cycles, says the rise could put another damper on consumer spending and add to factors slowing the economic recovery.

He believes that the surge in oil prices, which surpassed $140 a barrel in the summer of 2008, helped send the economy into the Great Recession that started December 2007 and ended in June 2009. It's true that the housing and banking crisis played a major role, but so did oil shocks. The spike in prices hurt consumer spending, and especially the U.S. auto industry.

In his research, Hamilton looked at the impact of oil prices on the auto industry to economic growth. He found a clear decline as oil prices skyrocketed and estimated that if the auto industry hadn't shrunk, GDP growth would have been half a percentage point higher from mid-2007 onward.

Consumption overwhelming makes up the majority of GDP -- about 70%. With so many dicey variables teetering either way in today's economy, it's anyone's guess how this latest development could impact the consumer in the coming months.

The rally Tuesday came as President Obama and Republican leaders agreed to extend Bush-era tax cuts. Also, a cold snap through Europe and the U.S. lifted demand for fuel. But U.S. crude fell slightly to $87.93 a barrel Wednesday after U.S. government data showed inventories for refined products rose sharply last week.

So where will oil prices go in the coming months? Some analysts predict that the commodity will hit $100 a barrel sometime next year as demand rises from China and other emerging economies. But various factors might send prices down as well, as the spread of Europe's debt crisis could strengthen the U.S. dollar and send prices for the dollar-denominate commodity downward.

For now at least, the $90 price is right around the point where consumers start noticing higher oil prices at the gas pump, Hamilton says. And with noticeably more spending on fuel, this could be another factor tightening consumption -- a development that would almost certainly slow down the recovery further.

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