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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: 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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