Peak Oil
The global oil industry covered all of Earth's continents in search of oil, and the limited results that they found prompted geologist M. King Hubbert to declare an impending peak oil situation; but the prospect of peak oil has not been reached more than 60 years later, and in fact, the rate of new oil prospectus has been growing in the past decade. The reason for this is sheer innovation; from the ground to the pump, in achieving further gains from existing oil fields, and opening up entirely new regions of untapped oil.
The first new technology since the 1950s is the least exciting, but cheapest option. It is the practice of using steam and gas in existing oil wells in order to loosen the hardened oil that is not easily pumped out in a liquid form. This technology has been used effectively in oil fields like the Kern River oil field in California, that had thought to have been exhausted in the 1960s because it pumped out an overage of 10,000 barrels a day. Now, with steam technology, the Kern River oil field has a daily output of over 85,000 daily barrels. (Moawad, 2007) This technology is particularly important to old oil fields in the Middle East and the United States in states like California and Texas in order to fully exhaust every available option when oil fields begin to die off. This process can yield unlimited more energy than geologists could have predicted in the 1950s.
A major breakthrough...
These rigs are strategically placed in the ocean in order to best tap oil reserves stored deep underwater. When the oil is pumped up, it can be directly moved onto oil tankers for
transport. The oil moves from the bottom of the ocean to the surface in a 21-inch pipe, and requires constant maintenance for safety concerns. The oil that is contained at these depths is generally mixed with flammable natural gas, and is highly pressurized.
These rigs represent miraculous technology, but can be dangerous as well due to the high risk
environment of underwater drilling, as seen in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of
Mexico. (Leovy, 2010) Oil giant BP was held responsible for $20 billion in payment for the accident, and took weeks to effectively put an end to the oil leakage into the Gulf of Mexico.
A third technology is that of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a highly controversial technology because of its effects on the environment. At its core, fracking is about pumping fluids into horizontal pipes underground, liquefying the natural gas contained there, and then pumping water through the pipes in order to flush out oil. (Hydraulic Fracturing, 2012) This process can be highly rewarding in many parts of the United States, but contributes to a problem of polluting water runoff into major waterways that may affect drinking water. The EPA has yet to reach conclusive results on the pollution side effects of fracking, but the
Obama administration has expressed…
