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The Wolfcamp shale in the Midland Basin portion of Texas' Permian Basin province contains an estimated mean of 20 billion barrels of oil, 16 trillion cubic feet of associated natural gas, and 1.6 billion barrels of natural gas liquids, according to an assessment by the U.S. Geological Survey. This estimate is for continuous (unconventional) oil, and consists of undiscovered, technically recoverable resources.
The estimate of continuous oil in the Midland Basin Wolfcamp shale assessment is nearly three times larger than that of the 2013 USGS Bakken-Three Forks resource assessment, making this the largest estimated continuous oil accumulation that USGS has assessed in the United States to date.
"The fact that this is the largest assessment of continuous oil we have ever done just goes to show that, even in areas that have produced billions of barrels of oil, there is still the potential to find billions more," said Walter Guidroz, program coordinator for the USGS Energy Resources Program. "Changes in technology and industry practices can have significant effects on what resources are technically recoverable, and that's why we continue to perform resource assessments throughout the United States and the world."
https://www.usgs.gov/news/usgs-estimates-20-billion-barrels-oil-texas-wolfcamp-shale-formation
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 21 2016, @03:37PM
global climate change gets even worse and we all drown / fry / dehydrate.
And yes, I know some people believe that second part is a hoax, but all available evidence says it isn't.
Over what time frame? Since you're opposing oil production now, that indicates to me you think it would be in the next century or two, which is sort of near future, since the argument against exploitation of oil resources is far weaker for time frames longer than that (because making the world wealthier via oil exploitation is better than preventing climate change on long horizons that can be more capably prevented at a future date).
So here's the evidence you are probably ignoring:
1) Lack of evidence in the present for severe global warming or other climate change.
2) Signs of a scam - official sources have false certainty coupled with huge error in critical parameter estimates like the CO2 temperature sensitivity, present a very one-sided view of the costs and benefits of a very particular mitigation strategy while presenting no alternatives to that strategy, have consistently made errors that work in favor of the particular strategy (the original "hockey stick" paper), continually make excuses for why present data doesn't describe future climate (such as rear-loading temperature rises and ice field melt, and claiming without evidence the existence of severely delayed positive feedbacks and tipping points ("It could be already too late")), claim the matter is urgent without providing evidence for this urgency, and employ fallacy to argue their position rather than evidence.
3) And what exactly does "drown / fry / dehydrate" entail when we have easy fixes to all three?
Do you really have no more effective argument than merely insisting that you're right and then making an easily disputed claim of perfection?
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Monday November 21 2016, @04:06PM
As an observer I'm not interested in passionate back and forth between pro and contra global warming sides. But I would like to know how many ppm global CO2 levels will rise if we burn all of this oil. I'm sure someone will be able to figure this out.
Apart from that, there is evidence that mining can lead to earthquakes, especially shale mining. If someone is going to make trillions off this oil field, make sure that some of this money will be used to compensated for damages that result from mining.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Monday November 21 2016, @04:56PM
Current CO2 concentration is 400 ppm roughly (meaning we have a 0.3% increase in CO2 concentration, if it is all burned right now) and temperature sensitivity is proportional to the log change. The estimated sensitivity is 1.5 C to 4.5 C long term increase in global average temperature per doubling of CO2. A 0.3% increase in CO2 concentration would then be 0.4% of a doubling of CO2. That means 0.006 C to 0.02 C increase in long term temperature.
I personally favor 2 C increase per doubling of CO2. That would be a bit less than 0.01 C increase in long term temperature.
It'll be a bit less than that in practice because CO2 levels will rise significantly before it is all used up (reducing the ratio of increase) and some will be fixed as asphalt or plastics.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 21 2016, @11:51PM
Several decades ago, I was driving two friends down a dark country road when we came to an essentially blind intersection. I had a fair idea of what "should" be on the other side of the intersection based on the general pattern of the roads in the area, but I didn't actually know for a fact what lay on the other side of the hump in the darkness. Since I was still immortal at the time, I continued motoring on at 60mph, took a light bounce over the hill into the darkness and we continued to cruise on through the night to our destination. My friends were visibly shaken, but, being in their early 20s, shook it off momentarily and nobody expressed a second thought about it.
Fact of the matter is: I did not know, for a fact, what I was flying us into, could not have stopped or maneuvered in time to avoid maiming or death if the other side of the intersection had been something nasty like a jog in the road, or even a cow standing there. Just because I got us through that little assumption unharmed does not mean it was a good idea - slowing down to a safe maneuvering speed for the blind hill would have been the smart thing to do, and if I took 100 blind hills like that, sooner or later I would have hit something - come to think of it, I did lightly rear-end some stopped cars on the other side of a blind hill around that time, quite lucky they weren't stopped closer or I could have hit them hard enough to hurt someone.
No matter who you believe, or don't, regarding CO2 and climate change, I know this: it's a blind hill - we haven't done this before, and we don't know what's on the other side. All the best predictions and science can miss something bigger and more significant than the Clathrate gun. What is not a distortion or extrapolation or a guess is that the CO2 levels are higher than they have been in a very long time: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/the-last-time-co2-was-this-high-humans-didnt-exist-15938 [climatecentral.org] any predictions regarding what this means for the actual future of the climate are ill-informed guesses, at best.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 22 2016, @07:59AM
We need to make decisions based on evidence not on fear. Seven billion people depend on that, not just you. The climate change people had their chance and they just didn't have the evidence to justify leaving 20 billion barrels of oil in the ground.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 22 2016, @01:25PM
A billion years of evolution brought us to this point, mostly moving slowly. Today we're moving much faster... continuing to accelerate at all the blind hills will eventually result in a nasty surprise on the other side.
The best evidence shows a handful of major extinction events over the last billion years, we've barely had steam power for 200 years and we're well on our way to creating another one. Slowing down and sticking with the behaviors that worked out for the best in the past 10,000 years will yield better long term outcomes than the current quarterly quest for profits.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 22 2016, @05:15PM
A billion years of evolution brought us to this point, mostly moving slowly. Today we're moving much faster... continuing to accelerate at all the blind hills will eventually result in a nasty surprise on the other side.
So what? You don't know where the blind spots are by definition. Which blind spots should we flinch at and which ones should we blissfully zoom through? The obvious thing we should be doing here is exploring these blind spots so they aren't blind spots. I think that's already been done with global warming.
The obvious thing here is that we're in an arms race of sorts. And while there are some dangerous spots, there's also the fact that we're elevating the entire human race out of poverty thing going on here (which let me note, has very positive long term effects on any sort of climate change, not just global warming).
Attempting to hold back the world because blind spots, will reward those who ignore you and punish those who pay attention to you. It's a losing position.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday November 21 2016, @04:12PM
I'll put it this way: The only reason you believe that global climate change is a hoax is that you've willfully ignored the available scientific evidence. There are numerous charts, graphs, etc showing that warming is happening, right now, and the main difference between what is happening and what the climatologists predicted is that what is actually happening is worse than the prediction.
As for what "drown, fry, dry" entails:
- Drown: Sea levels have been rising, hurricanes have been getting more powerful, and those two factors combined have done severe damage to coastal areas and islands already.
- Fry: Temperatures have been growing even more unbearably hot in places like Arizona.
- Dry: Droughts that are already causing severe impacts on many important agricultural regions. We're looking at Dust Bowl 2.0.
I know you don't want to believe it. But that doesn't make it any less true.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Monday November 21 2016, @04:37PM
I'll put it this way: The only reason you believe that global climate change is a hoax is that you've willfully ignored the available scientific evidence.
Put up or shut up.
There are numerous charts, graphs, etc showing that warming is happening, right now, and the main difference between what is happening and what the climatologists predicted is that what is actually happening is worse than the prediction.
What do "charts, graphs, etc" have to do with reality? But let's suppose you're right, why do your charts and graphs matter more than mine [theconversation.com]? (see the first chart) That chart shows remarkable agreement between models and global temperature estimates (aside from a brief period in the 1940s) until we get to the future of the models, then the models overshoot immediately.
As for what "drown, fry, dry" entails:
- Drown: Sea levels have been rising, hurricanes have been getting more powerful, and those two factors combined have done severe damage to coastal areas and islands already.
- Fry: Temperatures have been growing even more unbearably hot in places like Arizona.
- Dry: Droughts that are already causing severe impacts on many important agricultural regions. We're looking at Dust Bowl 2.0.
The obvious rebuttal is that these things would happen anyway. Confirmation bias is an ugly thing. You can't use cherry picked examples, you need to use statistics collected over a century or so.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2016, @04:53PM
> The obvious rebuttal is
The obvious rebuttal is that you are intellectually dishonest. Demanding levels of proof far beyond anything you are willing to provide and always ready with the most outlandish illogic to discredit any factual evidences that anyone gives to you.
So you win, nobody is going to bother to engage with you on a serious level anymore, not because there aren't serious arguments to be made, but because you are not a serious person.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Monday November 21 2016, @05:07PM
The obvious rebuttal is that you are intellectually dishonest. Demanding levels of proof far beyond anything you are willing to provide and always ready with the most outlandish illogic to discredit any factual evidences that anyone gives to you.
You're the ones making extraordinary claims. I don't have the budget to discuss the crap that gets thrown up. I'm also more than a little tired of basic science reasoning being called "outlandish logic" and the like. Learn to do science please.
So you win, nobody is going to bother to engage with you on a serious level anymore, not because there aren't serious arguments to be made, but because you are not a serious person.
Exactly. This is what I've been advocating for years now. Your side has been shoveling around the same crap. You need new evidence and at that point the only way you'll get it is by running the clock for a couple of decades.
Here's my favored scenario on what's going to happen. Those 1990s era models which continue to drive the climate change mitigation argument will continue to undershoot actual changes in temperature and probably sea level as well. In two decades, it's going to be quite obvious, despite a new generation of FUD that we have a gap between the fear and the reality. Sure, we will see some mild problems from global warming, maybe even from ocean acidification. But they will turn out to be wildly exaggerated in hindsight.
My bet is that while a fair portion of the developed world will still be on the climate change train, most of the developing world will be completely apathetic or even hostile to what they consider irrelevant first world problems.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday November 21 2016, @07:29PM
So, just so I'm clear, a claim that has an observation A [nasa.gov], an observation B [nasa.gov], and an easily tested [rsc.org] mechanism for A causing B is something you consider "extraordinary".
The only answer you have left is that NASA (and all of the other organizations that have made similar observations) are faking the data, and have been faking the data for about 30 years without ever being caught.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 21 2016, @09:13PM
The only answer you have left is that NASA (and all of the other organizations that have made similar observations) are faking the data, and have been faking the data for about 30 years without ever being caught.
That is still possible. The linkage between satellite and surface records is a point of weakness that can be exploited just as the similar linkages between the instrument record and paleoclimate data.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 21 2016, @09:59PM
I don't know about the rest of you but I believe xkcd.com
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 21 2016, @10:17PM
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 21 2016, @11:12PM
So, are you arguing that no amount of CO2 emitted by the burning of fossil fuel will ever be detrimental to future generations, or do you merely dispute the current popular assertions that we are "near the tipping point"? If so (the mere dispute), what do you suggest as a method or means for determining an actual "tipping point" that 7 Billion people can use as a geo-political guideline to inform their actions to the benefit of their future generations? Or, since we don't have a good method we should just motor on ahead until we do have better information?
Thanks for looking up the links, my hardline internet was temporarily down, research and editing from a phone is tedious.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 22 2016, @08:06AM
Or, since we don't have a good method we should just motor on ahead until we do have better information?
This. It's not just global warming, but a long standing pattern of really poor decision making based on FUD and incomplete evidence. The same thing has happened with nuclear power, CFC production, medical research, and a lot of heavy industry throughout the developed world. What's next after global warming? It's time to stop this and actually do sensible decision making before a lot of people die of it.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 22 2016, @01:31PM
While I agree that nuclear power could be better used world-wide (take France as an example) and that FUD is holding it back from its full potential, and the U.S. medical industry is twisted beyond anything Kafka ever imagined, not only by FUD but that's a component they use, all in all - FUD isn't the end of the world, mostly it's a slow rollout of new ideas.
If population growth is controlled (ala Malthus), FUD won't hurt anything at all... trying to combine exponential population growth and bold new technologies to solve the problems on the fly - that's something worthy of uncertainty, doubt, and Fear.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 22 2016, @05:18PM
mostly it's a slow rollout of new ideas.
I guess a full stop on several of these items is technically a slow rollout (US nuclear power and a fair bit of heavy industry, for example). But even slow rollouts kill people. Medicine is a blatant example. But so is generating less wealth for society. Poverty kills far more effectively than wealth does.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 22 2016, @05:57PM
US Nuclear power isn't full stop - there have been developments in the industry, mostly centered on making 30 year design life plants last for 60 to 100, but also designs for micro-nuke generating stations, new full size plant designs with passive safety and other things that haven't quite turned the "profitability" corner vs the regulation (fear) that's stacked up against them.
I'd like to see us spending more on space missions and less on aircraft carriers, but, to a big extent, I do "buy into" the argument that we've got problems to solve right here, at the wealth level we are at, rather than reaching for the stars of ever higher concentrations of money and power. Social engineering could take the existing level of wealth in the world, distribute it a little differently, and not only reduce death and suffering from poverty, but also reduce the need for prisons, police, and military interventions. Do that right and the rich stay just as rich as they are, while the rest get better, and everybody can live with a little less tension in their lives - with a dividend left over to do things like space exploration, medical advances, and clean energy development.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 22 2016, @06:21PM
US Nuclear power isn't full stop - there have been developments in the industry, mostly centered on making 30 year design life plants last for 60 to 100, but also designs for micro-nuke generating stations, new full size plant designs with passive safety and other things that haven't quite turned the "profitability" corner vs the regulation (fear) that's stacked up against them.
New power plant construction has only been approved in 2011 for a single reactor design the AP1000 [wikipedia.org] and for only four reactors at two [wikipedia.org] sites [wikipedia.org]. Before that, there is a 30 year period of no new reactor construction. That's the full stop with a very slow start in the recent past.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 22 2016, @07:12PM
No new site construction is very different than "zero progress" - research continues, design and feasibility continue... I wish it were more, but to me "full stop" would be where Germany is headed right now: shutting down the existing plants. The US hasn't hit that level of FUD, yet.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 22 2016, @07:33PM
No new site construction is very different than "zero progress" - research continues, design and feasibility continue...
I disagree. You aren't generating power with research and feasibility studies.
but to me "full stop" would be where Germany is headed right now: shutting down the existing plants.
That would be "reverse" not "stop".
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 22 2016, @07:40PM
Reverse is where they are at... of course, this is the generation that printed their high school yearbooks on "environmentally friendly recycled unbleached" paper which yellowed and rotted within months - not that I care that my high school yearbooks still look the same as they did 30 years ago, but, seriously? Why not save the environment by not printing a yearbook at all, instead of going to the trouble of making one that falls apart just to make a "we are green" statement?
🌻🌻 [google.com]