The world’s energy demand is growing. Experts say it may double by the year 2050.
Harold Vinegar: That’s really hard for easy oil to keep up with. By easy oil, I mean oil that’s easy to reach and easy to recover. And it’s extremely unlikely that it’ll be able to keep pace with that growing demand.
Harold Vinegar, a Chief Scientist for Shell, is talking about what he called ‘easy’ or ‘conventional’ oil. He also talked about hard-to-get or ‘unconventional’ oil – including a heavy oil that’s hard to pull from the ground.
Harold Vinegar: And these are actually very old oils that are extremely viscous. They can have a texture almost like peanut butter. And they just won’t flow in the subsurface because of their viscosity. So it’s necessary to heat them in situ – in the ground – in order to get them to flow.
This process is called ‘in-situ upgrading.’ The underground heaters measure up to 2,000 feet – or 600 meters – long. The heated oil is easier to recover.
Harold Vinegar: What we’re actually doing here is speeding up the natural processes that would occur over millions of years. We do it in a few years. He said this ‘in-situ’ process is in the late stages of testing. Vinegar said he’s especially optimistic about early success in Colorado and Canada. Vinegar has spent nearly 30 years developing the ‘in-situ’ process. He said that because there’s no mining involved, there are no chemical contaminants from mined rock. Plus, he said, less water is used in the oil recovery process.
Harold Vinegar: So, for example in Colorado, one acre contains over one million barrels of oil per acre. Just think about that.
This podcast was made possible in part by Shell – encouraging dialogue on the energy challenge.
Isn’t this just a costly short-term solution to our energy woes? It still contributes to global warming and still keeps us dependent on oil, with all that that entails. Isn’t that correct?
Wake up to reality! We still need oil. What does ur car use for fuel RIGHT NOW ???
I guess this kind of oil is better than no oil, even though it’s probably expensive. It said they were doing this for 30 years, so they started getting this oil before we were running out, and so at least they were thinking ahead.
SOMEDAY we will run out of oil. we have until then to find other energy sources. Until then, this kind of techology is smart.
I think this new process is a GREAT IDEA.
How can you people be so short-sighted? Do you not have children or grandchilden? Research money and our best scientists should be focussed on RENEWABLE sources of energy that don’t mess up this planet.
I agree with Kerri and Joe ~ I believe this technology causes irreversible damages to our earth!! They never tell the truth, and what they care is MONEY~ If we don’t put effort on clean and ultimate energy, when should we do it? Aren’t we too selfish to mess up the earth like this? Think about your children and grandchildren. That might be smart to take out all the oil with this “INNOVATIVE” technology, but how about 50 years later? Do you think we can figure out mature technologies of new energy in few years after we run out of oil?
Jerry
So many of these comments reflect the polarization of the people in this nation on the energy crisis. It is this type of closed-mindedness that has driven the leadership of this country to ignore a problem that has been self-evident since the 1970’s. The odd part is that both sides are partly correct. The lack of an alternative energy source deployable on a massive basis keeps us dependent on oil for probably another 30+ years. During this period global consumption of hydrocarbons will increase. If we do not implement policies to backfill for the global inability to supply to meet this demand, oil will rise to as much as $300/barrel and economies, including our own, will crumble. So we need to pursue new sources of hydrocarbon fuels whether they be in oil shale or conventional reservoirs. But we cannot drill our way out of this problem forever as the supply is finite and the damage to the environment must be contained. Concurrently we also need to implement efficiency standards for energy consumption to slow the rate of growth. And goverment is going to have to work in partnership with private enterprise and be more creative than ever before to produce the energy as well as the infrastructure to bring the energy to market during the next 30 year period. If we do not begin to act now on every front and put our personal causes and biases aside, we will leave our children with a problem that makes social security look like a first grade math test in terms of complexity.
Well said, John F.!
I poke around threads like this a LOT — as in hours daily. (I’m retired.) And I do see a lot of extremism on both sides.
If I could wave a magic wand and get us off fossil fuels tomorrow, I would — but only if I could *also* wave that wand a second time so all the people in the oil, coal, and natural gas industries wouldn’t be in a breadline. And yes, I would include everyone, from the top right all the way down and out to stockholders.
But we do need to speed up development of alternative energy sources, like yesterday. I know two guys who work in oil fields and who argue, completely earnestly, that we won’t run out of oil in a million years. (I’m not joking.) Even the oil companies don’t make that wild claim.
On the other hand, the greenies among us have to realize that fossil fuels — and nuclear — are *not* going to disappear overnight; in fact, they’ll be major parts of our energy equation for decades.
Or, put more directly, a “drill, baby, drill!” approach won’t work forever — and that’s without even considering ecological impacts — but neither will screaming about greedy oil barons make them go away. The science isn’t there to support either contention.