There is more oil locked away in the earth, that is undoubtedly true. We may not have reached the true peak in the total reserve of oil available, but we are wringing the sponge dry in trying to access this oil. We also have to ask, at what cost will we continue to try to extract this oil?
Lets take shale oil/gas and fracking as an example, as it seems to be the “cool” method currently.
Many say that for fracking to be economically sustainable, the price of a barrel of oil must be between $60-75. With the current oil glut, that is no problem but as the easily access reserves dry up and our technology continues to lag, will it be worth it?
Pulling from your post and I believe Russell Gold….
“We’re limited not by the amount of oil in the ground, but by how inventive we are about reaching new sources of fuel and how much we’re willing to pay to get at it.”
It would seem we are willing to pay more than we will ever get back. The depletion rate of fracked oil wells is shocking, and the solution is only to drill more holes which costs more money.
As we saw in class, shale oil has an extremely low EROEI.
Fracking should be seen as a temporary solution not a means to an end. Technology should not be invested in fracking but instead renewable energy, where with efficiency could render an extremely high EROEI and “complement and eventually displace hydrocarbon based energy generation on a large scale.
We don’t need to think we are living in a world where oil is drying up like water ( and fracking plays no part in that…jk). Or reference “The Nightmare of Life Without Fuel” like your friend Arun Gupta. And yes, we can yammer on about the economic return blah blah…but what is the end goal? What are we trying to achieve? Are we trying to wring that sponge bone dry? Is this a game of “see mother nature, you tried to hide the oil…but I FOUND IT”?
It is this type of short sighted thinking that got us into the energy and environmental ruts we live in today. Our solution is to just drill a little deeper….
Wei,
I did make that point and of course it is not some new point. It is always easier said than done too. I can say that we need to make the push towards renewable energy, but the reality is of course much more complicated than that. I liked your post because it showed the hard truth. There is more oil, and I agree we have a need to feed and we will continue to “eat” oil.
I think a recent development with fracking is that it is exposing more homes to higher levels of radon. Do you believe that with this additional risk fracking should continue?
I agree with your points, we as a society need to invest more time and money into improving our current sources of sustainable and clean energy because at this point in time, they are not very efficient. Current sources of “green energy” like solar and wind energy also have environmental implications as well that most people do not realize. I am not sure how we can improve our energy efficiency and reduce the drilling of oil while still regulating our needs for oil. However, if we are to ever move away from fracking and digging, we need to invest in better, cleaner methods.
I very much enjoyed reading your post. I strongly agree with your statements regarding the long-term impacts of short-sighted decision making, and that the next logical step forward would be large-scale investment in creating more energy-efficient renewable technology. At the same time, I agree with the previous comment on this post that in order to accomplish this goal we must rely on the current processes in place.
You made your point. The best sustainable solution for both the environmental issues and the energy source issues is to develop or discovery a renewable new energy source. Unlorturnaly, our contemporary society is very hard to feed: It needs a tremendous amount of energy to keep itself functional, and right now oil is still relatively most efficient energy source we have, so digging more holes for oil is temporarily still necessary for us.