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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


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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 21 2016, @09:59PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday November 21 2016, @09:59PM (#430867)

    I don't know about the rest of you but I believe xkcd.com

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 21 2016, @10:17PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 21 2016, @10:17PM (#430873) Journal
    The xkcd comics on global warming (here [xkcd.com] and here [xkcd.com]) are unusually weak with the same unfounded assertions and the same unfounded conclusions. Notice just like other climate change propaganda, there is no discussion of error bars. We have the usual false certainty.
    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 21 2016, @11:12PM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday November 21 2016, @11:12PM (#430912)

      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.

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      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 22 2016, @08:06AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 22 2016, @08:06AM (#431123) Journal

        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

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday November 22 2016, @01:31PM (#431196)

          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.

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          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 22 2016, @05:18PM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 22 2016, @05:18PM (#431342) Journal

            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

              by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday November 22 2016, @05:57PM (#431365)

              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.

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              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 22 2016, @06:21PM

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 22 2016, @06:21PM (#431385) Journal

                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

                  by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday November 22 2016, @07:12PM (#431417)

                  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.

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                  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 22 2016, @07:33PM

                    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 22 2016, @07:33PM (#431432) Journal

                    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

                      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday November 22 2016, @07:40PM (#431435)

                      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?

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