Well, it would seem that some
things that people think that we have ironclad information about are not so
ironclad. For instance, if the oil industry/regulation experts keep adding to
the number of barrels of reserve oil that the US has in its possession that
they really don’t know how much oil is lurking under our feet? I mean, I am all
for new technologies that have the potential to net us more “energy” and
hopefully for cheaper, but isn’t their estimations and second-guessing a little
absurd? Leonard Maugeri makes sense when he talks about easy oil, that which
takes little to no effort to obtain. He says it is running out, but when it was
first found it could in no way be considered easy. Our current “difficult oil”
will become easy oil when we develop the technologies to make it easier to
procure. Oddly though it doesn’t make me as happy to find we really aren’t
running out of oil. Less pressure about the lack of oil means less drive to
move to alternative fuel sources so long as oil is easy to get. More oil sounds
like a huge paradox in emotion. Onwards instead to Natural Gas, and its extraction
from shale, everyday land owners are finding themselves newly rich when natural
gas rich shale is discovered on their land. Previously the natural gas would be
impossible and impractical to remove from the shale, but horizontal-drilling,
merely drilling sideways instead of up-and-down, and hydraulic fracturing,
which is forcing water and chemicals into the vein to force the natural gas out
through the added pressure. The process is thought to be safe, but, given the
nature of people, human error and shortcuts can always cause issues. Natural
Gas may be marketable and profitable, but should it be used as a fuel source?
It can be argued as cleaner and safer than petroleum, but can America live with
the issues that come from its extraction process or its use?
[Image Credit: IMAGE © ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/ ANDREW PENNER]
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