Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by cmn32480 on Monday November 21 2016, @02:17PM   Printer-friendly
from the bblack-gold dept.

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


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 21 2016, @08:37PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 21 2016, @08:37PM (#430819) Journal
    So they choose to work in the field, then choose not to. That's frequently how these things work. I hate to say it, but it just sounds like you're looking for excuses to not have oil drilling. Let's go through your reasons in more detail:

    silly numbers on spreadsheets:

    It's oil, lifeblood of human transportation on land, sea, and air.

    it's an investment

    While oil price bobble up and down a lot over the years, oil prices aren't growing that much over time once you get past the variation. It just doesn't make sense economically to sit on something that isn't accumulating value very fast. A key problem here is that as oil prices increase, the pool of exploitable oil greatly increases (this field being an example). That curbs the rate of increase of oil prices.

    leave the dirty stuff underground

    a toxic landscape.

    Well, it isn't hurting anything underground, that's true. But I think the pollution and ecological harm from oil production is way overstated. For example, there are tens to hundreds of thousands of wells drilled throughout the US west, but invariably, they are surrounded by normal vegetation. Whatever ecological harm they cause is not visible to the human eye. It'd be one thing, if the terrain looked like blasted lunar regolith afterward. Then you could say, "here's the harm". But healthy plant life (and often human habitation right next to the well) indicates that the ecological devastation is universally strongly capped.

    As to global warming and ocean acidification, sure, oil burning is a contribution to that. But I want to see actual evidence of harm, not merely assertions. Funny how people talk far more about my alleged unwillingness to see facts than the facts themselves.

    Expensive oil also slows down poor countries taking over.

    Not even sure why you thought that was a benefit. If your lunch is getting eaten by poor countries and cheap oil, then maybe you ought to look instead at what you're doing wrong rather than hope for economic circumstances that will cripple your competitors somewhat more than those circumstances cripple you. Let's do some positive sum thinking here.

    nobody screws up and brings fusion to the masses before the next 40 years

    This really is about cheap energy that makes renewable fuel more viable than pulling harder to get petroleum out of the ground. All I can say is that it must be harder than it looks. I'm fine if it happens before most of this oil leaves ground. But it strikes me that we shouldn't count on it happening before it happens.

    Oil rig workers should be steered to safer employment for their own good

    Sorry, I'm not going to second guess grown ups just because they work in a dangerous industry. They get paid a lot more for that risk that they willingly take on. That's good enough for me.

  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 21 2016, @09:15PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday November 21 2016, @09:15PM (#430838)

    A) those aren't "my" reasons, but they're good enough for argument's sake

    B) Oil is just a source of energy, if we have enough energy to meet our needs, there's no reason to get it from undesirable sources. I'd rate some undesirable sources as: slave power (e.g. pulling oars from the galley to move a ship), burning trees - yes, I do it occasionally, but not for even 1% of my energy needs, burning coal - especially coal laced with mercury and other fun contaminants but also charcoal such as they manufacture in Haiti, dirty inefficient stuff and bad for the landscape, and then there's fossil fuels, which can be a little cleaner looking but still release CO2 into the atmosphere - release enough CO2 quickly enough and your grandchildren will be quite disappointed in you.

    C) Just because "grown men make their own decisions" doesn't make the decisions good. Circle back to the grown men of Haiti, they have decided to burn all the country's trees as a source of cooking fuel, mostly in the form of homemade charcoal. They do it to earn money as best they can in their situation. No dictator has a gun to their head making them do it, it's the logical, economically driven choice given their circumstances. Compare their quality of life to the grown men of the Dominican Republic - same natural resources, different management decisions.

    D) "Whatever ecological harm they cause is not visible to the human eye." Does the same logic apply to radiation? Microbial contamination (plague)? Check your facts at scale, check the ocean's fish stocks, populations of large animals, on land and in the sea. We're screwing over the biosphere as fast as any meteor strike ever did, and we're doing it with cheap energy, mostly oil, and the biggest sources of harm are being done for the purpose of "making money." Money won't buy an Atlantic Grey Whale, or a Tasmanian Tiger, Saudi Gazelle, or Japanese Sea Lion, anymore - and something simple like a Codfish sandwich isn't the cheap, widely available meal it used to be.

    So, pump your oil, if you bought the mineral rights you bought 'em for a reason, and that reason wasn't to save the Texas jackrabbit habitat. Those rights, and rules, and whole economic incentive system were built back in the 1800s, and they must have known back then what's best for us in the world today - keep playing that game and don't let anyone change the rules on you.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday November 22 2016, @02:54AM

    by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday November 22 2016, @02:54AM (#430995)

    > It just doesn't make sense economically to sit on something that isn't accumulating value very fast.

    It's been there for a few million years, during most of which it had no value. Must you really rush to possess it, just to protect yourself against the eventuality that it might not be quite as valuable later?
    Humans are sad things.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 22 2016, @05:23PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 22 2016, @05:23PM (#431345) Journal

      It's been there for a few million years, during most of which it had no value. Must you really rush to possess it, just to protect yourself against the eventuality that it might not be quite as valuable later?

      Conversely, for the first time in millions of years, this oil formation is finally of immense value to humanity. But you want to leave it in the ground because it was worthless a few million years ago? Who's the sad human?

      • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday November 22 2016, @05:46PM

        by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday November 22 2016, @05:46PM (#431359)

        I believe it will be of much higher value to the Roach civilization that follows ours, so who am I to decide to selfishly deprive them of it?

  • (Score: 2) by butthurt on Tuesday November 22 2016, @03:33AM

    by butthurt (6141) on Tuesday November 22 2016, @03:33AM (#431028) Journal

    For example, there are tens to hundreds of thousands of wells drilled throughout the US west, but invariably, they are surrounded by normal vegetation. Whatever ecological harm they cause is not visible to the human eye.

    Stories from 2013, 2014 and 2016, at least two of which are based on State of the Air reports from the American Lung Association, named Bakersfield, California as having the worst air pollution among U.S. cities. According to CNN,

    The area is also a major oil producing region, which introduces diesel soot, from well pumps, and chemical fumes into the air.

    http://time.com/3399134/air-pollution-climate-change-bakersfield-caifornia/ [time.com]
    http://money.cnn.com/gallery/real_estate/2013/04/24/polluted-cities/index.html [cnn.com]
    http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-air-pollution-report-20160420-story.html [latimes.com]

    In 2000, 2001 and 2002 the Lung Association had called Bakersfield the "second smoggiest" place.

    http://www.csub.edu/~mault/air.htm [csub.edu]

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 22 2016, @07:40AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 22 2016, @07:40AM (#431116) Journal
      I see the place has three refineries. And being California where something like a refinery couldn't be built in the last three or so decades, it means that they're all old. Also, it's located in Central Valley and downwind from Los Angeles, meaning even if there was no human settlement there, it would be polluted due to the atmosphere trapping pollution from nearby Los Angeles area, the agricultural activity of Central Valley, and traffic from Los Angeles to urban areas of northern California, particularly Sacramento.

      But sure, let's blame the oil wells.