[rockdoc123]

What about in situ combustion?

holy smoke that brings back some not so found memories. Was involved once with the first heavy oil fire flood in 1977 (I think it was the first)....saw some of the cored rock after the flood went past ....it looked pretty much like the stuff you put into the bottom of your barbeque. The humerous part of this is we sold that oil for a profit....but only because of the ridiculous subsidy from the gov't.

[MacG]

That is why we need a Tesla or a Graham Bell to figure out this puzzle of how to economically maximize this Recovery because as you see by the percentages, we leave a hell of a lot it in the ground.

And then? When we run out of that oil also? Methane hydrates? And when we run out of THAT stuff? It's still fossil you know. Look what kind of predicament we put ourselves in while using the first half of the oil. Are there any serious reasons to belive we will suddenly get much smarter if we get even more of the stuff?

[rockdoc123]

And then? When we run out of that oil also? Methane hydrates? And when we run out of THAT stuff? It's still fossil you know. Look what kind of predicament we put ourselves in while using the first half of the oil. Are there any serious reasons to belive we will suddenly get much smarter if we get even more of the stuff?

OK and then what do your propose. The whole point of this well-meaning thread was to do with unrecoverable oil...how do you get at it ...if it is possible. It has nothing to do with your holy than thou ....oh we should have just lived in caves and eaten raw mealy worms for sustanence attitude. So from one scientist/engineer to a idjit....kindly just frig off and take your birkenstocks with you.

[shakespear1]

Friends

My only intent in raising this is issue is to point out something that is not in my opinion very high on the agenda. For sure not all of my petroleum engineering friends. Yehhh, try to believe that one. We subconsciously know the problem and use the constant in our calculations but don't think about it much further than that!!!!!

When prices of oil were below $20 this did not even come up on the radar screen anywhere where I have been. MAYBE NOW it has been rediscovered but I doubt that it will happen where you think it should. The Major Oil Companies. Why? Because RESEARCH is not something that goes over well at stockholders meetings. It does not make money tomorrow.

I bet we can go to any university and ask their PhD's who are not in Petroleum Engineering what the oil/gas recovery is out of a reservoir and 90% would not know the answer. They are busy thinking about how to make a better cell phone, radar system, looking for reasons for the disappearance of the Maya's ( this one is rather interesting and similar to PO ).

I truly think that posing this problem to the people that are not even in the industry could potentially spark a cross discipline solution. Marketing - "Can You Solve The Puzzle of the New Millennium?". Stick the posters everywhere, send e-mails with this instead of this bloody SPAM I get in HOTMAIL for credit cards, set up a WEBSITE and who knows what might happen.

If someone was willing to put millions on the table to entice others just to fly to space and return to earth to start TOURISM for the Millionaires then why not this.

This is just my simple minded IDEA to help in this situation.

I agree, this will not in the END solve our problem, but it could be one step needed to complete the journey.

[MacG]

And then? When we run out of that oil also? Methane hydrates? And when we run out of THAT stuff? It's still fossil you know. Look what kind of predicament we put ourselves in while using the first half of the oil. Are there any serious reasons to belive we will suddenly get much smarter if we get even more of the stuff?

OK and then what do your propose. The whole point of this well-meaning thread was to do with unrecoverable oil...how do you get at it ...if it is possible. It has nothing to do with your holy than thou ....oh we should have just lived in caves and eaten raw mealy worms for sustanence attitude. So from one scientist/engineer to a idjit....kindly just frig off and take your birkenstocks with you.

Nahhh, come on! Birkenstocks are hi tech! And made in China. I imagine wearing something made out of wool....

Seriously, we HAVE extremely long and complex supply lines for such things as food, clothes and all other kinds of stuff, and it was coal and oil which made it possible. Sooner or later we will run out of ANY kind of fossil energy, and if we use that fossil energy to build even MORE complex systems for the necessities of life, we will be in an even worse fix when it finally run out. Hubbert saw it already in the 1949 paper.

It is one thing to use fossil energy as a bonus thing, quite another to put our lives at the mercy of it as we have done.

[shakespear1]

funwithdickandjane

Thanks for that link. I just went there and it is nice and informative ( the home page ). The poor guys will have a hard time pulling people from here though.

However I contacted someone there to propose putting a banner with that slogan I used in my last post -"Can You Solve The Puzzle of the New Millennium?". I am even thinking to start writing letters to major Science journals to do this. I have time and if anyone else wants to join in so much the better. Can't hurt!!

[rockdoc123]

hey shakespeare I for one think this was a great post. This is definitely a topic we need to think about as scientists/engineers further. Hopefully we can have the strength to deal with the "I think it would be wonderful to live in a yurt with my smelly mate and live off whatever stuff we could dig out of the ground crowd".
We have ahead of us a huge challenge...it is going to take some serious scientific contemplation and hard work...........as I said above for the folks out there who would rather roll over and die or are really happy about being able to make use of their automatic weapons....please kindly have sex withyourself. I like my world and I am going to fight for it.

[MacG]

as I said above for the folks out there who would rather roll over and die or are really happy about being able to make use of their automatic weapons....please kindly have sex withyourself. I like my world and I am going to fight for it.

Hmmm... That must be meant for me? Pretty harsh words, a rather broad brush and quite a lot of assumptions.

Well, I'm pretty fond of a lot of aspects of our world and want to contribute as much as I can to keep those, but conditions change, and societies change. That is the way it has been trough history. If we fail to adapt to changing conditions there is a pretty high probability that there wont be that many of us left. There ARE civilized ways to live without burning a lot of fossil fuels, and I find it interesting to find such ways.

Housing:
www.bedzed.org.uk (although they harp about "global warming" it is just as useful in context of PO)
www.thenaturalhome.com

Monetary systems without inherent growth requirement:
www.newapproachtofreedom.info/pemExplanation.php (theoretical foundation)
www.bartercard.com (practical implementation)

Transforming a city:
http://www.holon.se/folke/lectures/Rura ... cument.htm
-There is a similar plan for Los Angeles but I have misplaced the link

[shakespear1]

Hey Rock

I liked your posts and see that you must know the Oil Patch very well. Are you a geologist or an engineer?

Much happens in this world that we take for granted and think "Well someone is working on that?" Quiet often unless you move the matter forward nothing much will happen. That is why I like this place because in the PO Web Site there is a lot of brains and people able to think inside and outside of the box.

MacG

I am of the Buddist Philosophy and would counsel to just let the waves ride. Which you do better than some judging by the words of your response. You have a right to your view point and it is good that you share it. That is what this place is for.

How good is this place ---> I stepped into one of the forums on PO and found this Gem

http://www.seedballs.com/

Heck, I am going to start to do this!!!

[shakespear1]

Well I found a list of Universities and am going to shoot off a stream of e-mail. They are going to Chemistry dept. in some cases as for instance MIT does not have a Petroleum Eng. Dept..

I wanted to answer some who asked before if the issue of PO was ever discussed in the oil firms I worked for.

The answer is NO. The only place where I came in contact with this for the first time was with Schlumberger ( I work for them ). Around 1981 they published in their internal monthly magazine Oil Review an article about King Hubbard and his ideas. Since that time I do not recall running into this until my next encounter which was the DIEOFF web site.

This issue may have made the radar screen but not in my area, reservoir engineering. I suspect that geologist who do exploration must have start to think of this when they began to have problems making big finds.

ARCO Oil and Gas for whom I worked went out of business because its exploration efforts were dismal. That is how the dinosaurs die.

However ARCO had a huge laboratory which did research and you can guess what went first when exploration was not giving results and shareholders were unhappy.