Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Journal #10


                The article Squeezing more oil from the ground made a logical argument.  I believe that there could be some truth to Maugeri’s case, that there is in fact a larger amount of oil than we have pumped out already.  The problem I have with it is how difficult and costly will it be to extract the remaining oil.  With gas prices at almost $4 a gallon, and that the “easy stuff” how much will it cost to move to the next phase of drilling, that is if we even want to pursue that path.
                In the video on natural gas, we once again see the industry leaders touting natural gas as our savior.  According to the video it is abundant and much cleaner than oil.  Everything sounded legitimate in the interview of one company’s CEO until he was asked about the possibility of chemicals getting into the water supply.  As soon as the question was asked his eyes got big and he went on the defensive, claiming that it is virtually impossible for the chemicals to make their way through the thick layers of rock and into the water supply.  He did a bad job of hiding the fact that he was very well aware of the cases of people who have had their groundwater turned into a flammable, toxic brew.
                Crude Awaking was a revealing video.  I think that there has to be truth behind the peak oil theory because sooner or later the stuff will run out.  I think the most logical approach would be a middle path between peak oil and the argument that we have hundreds of years worth of oil. Perhaps we do have lots of oil like Maugeri claims but peak oil theory is also correct about how much of that we can access now.  With the technology we have today we are perfectly capable of coming up with new fuels to take us into the 21st century.

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