Deepwater Oil

Will enhanced oil recovery be an oil supply savior?

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Oil supply optimists often say that the application of enhanced oil recovery techniques to existing and future wells will vastly expand oil reserves and oil production. The trouble is these techniques aren’t new, and they are already being widely applied. That means current oil reserves and production already reflect any effect they have had.

Throwing our energy at impossible dreams…

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“as mankind proceeded to get bigger and bigger we silently crossed a threshold”

Peak Oil: The Eventual End of the Oil Age

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We cannot be lulled into a false sense of security: though oil prices have declined from their historic highs, there is little doubt that peak oil is real. A 2008 research project completed at Washington University in St. Louis found strong evidence in support of the theory. Please feel free to circulate this academic document as a primer on peak oil.

Response to George Will: “There is still no alternative to oil”

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George Will had quite a few figures in his commentary “There is still no alternative to oil” that suggested there are no supply problems concerning oil. I think there are a few more figures that should be added to assess the oil supply situation.

Half a trillion barrels more than we thought? (Or, “The Tupi Field, the Pre-salt, and the Very Distant Future”)

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At the end of the first day of the ASPO conference in Denver, we were treated to a fantastic presentation on the oil potential of the sub-salt basins on the margins of the South Atlantic Ocean given by Dr Marcio Mello who presented the evidence for a half trillion barrels of reserves in this new frontier province. So has a new Saudi Arabia been found?

Resources and anthropocentrism

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Evolution demands short-term thinking focused on individual survival. Most attempts to overcome our evolutionarily hardwired absorption with self are selected against. The Overman is dead, killed by a high-fat diet and unwillingness to exercise. Reflexively, we follow him into the grave.