I’ve opened a topic over on the discussion board to talk about whether peak oil is actually a good thing because of how it will restrain our carbon emissions.
Please come over, register if you need to (it’s free and painless, really), and join the discussion.
The topic is: Peak oil vs. global warming
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March 28th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
What do you make of this?
http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news2.13s.html
If true…how should this change one’s perception of boilerplate Peak Oil assumptions regarding US reserves?
March 29th, 2008 at 9:31 am
I’ve heard of Bakken before, but don’t know a lot about it.
In the article you linked to, it mentions that the field was discovered in 1951 and was assessed in 1999. That leads me to believe that there is something else afoot here, like oil at a depth or in geological surroundings that will make it tougher to extract than the $20-$40/barrel numbers cited would suggest.
As for the “boilerplate assumptions”–everyone uses the best numbers we have available. If Bakken proves to be a viable reserve, then the US reserves numbers will be appropriately increased. And whatever production comes from Bakken will be added to the overall US oil production numbers. Data is data, we use the best we have, and we go where it leads us.
I do have to wonder why there has been so little discussion of Bakken, though. Why aren’t the cornucopians making a far bigger deal out of it than they are Jack2 or the Brazilian offshore find? Why are the Apocalypticons not telling each other and us endlessly why Bakken makes no difference? Something weird is going on here.
The article is dated Feb. 13, 2008, and it says that a new USGS assessment will be available in 30 days. So far, it’s either not on the USGS site or I can’t find it via their search function.
In general, I think we have to be very careful about such articles, e.g. “It was not until 2007, when EOG Resources of Texas started a frenzy when they drilled a single well in Parshal N.D. that is expected to yield 700,000 barrels of oil that real excitement and money started to flow in North Dakota.” That’s 700,000 barrels per day? week? lifetime for that well? Without a time dimension that number is meaningless.