Oil Wells Done Rube-Goldberg Style: Flatrods And Jerk Lines:
The news is full of the record low oil price due to the COVID-19-related drop in demand. The benchmark Brent crude dipped below $20 a barrel, while West Texas intermediate entered negative pricing. We've all become oil market watchers overnight, and for some of us that's led down a rabbit hole of browsing to learn a bit about how oil is extracted.
Many of us will have seen offshore oil platforms or nodding pumpjacks, but how many of us outside the industry have much more than a very superficial knowledge of it? Of all the various technologies to provide enlightenment of the curious technologist there's one curious survivor from the earliest days of the industry that is definitely worth investigation, the jerk line oil well pump. This is a means of powering a reciprocating pump in an oil well not through an individual engine or motor as in the pump jacks, but in a system of rods transmitting power over long distances from a central location by means of reciprocating motion. It's gloriously simple, which has probably contributed to its survival in a few small-scale oil fields over a century and a half after its invention.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday May 05 2020, @10:48PM (1 child)
A definite point. And the use of petrochemicals is a lot larger than just producing energy for home and industrial purposes. Electricity is much less so. But you still need to count all the subsidies if you're going to make a valid comparison rather than just a political statement.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 06 2020, @01:06AM