Summarizing a cornucopian case for oil

Someone on reddit asked if there was a cornucopian counterpart to the www.oildrum.com

About 20% (2400 out of 11,300 articles) of this site are focused on energy with a more cornucopian view. I have also had articles published at theoildrum.

Here is a sample of articles from this site that form what the Oildrum would consider a cornucopian case for oil. I am more positive about nuclear energy (deep burn nuclear, uprating and then nuclear fusion as well as space based solar.) However, the next couole

1. Using halophytes to grow fuel. Dr. Bilial Bomani, the head of NASA’s greenlab research facility

Sample of articles tagged oil

2. IEA Monthly World Oil Report showed Global oil supply rose by 200,000 bpd to 91.1 million bpd in May. Non-OPEC liquids increased by 0.2 mb/d to 53.1 mb/d and by 1.0 mb/d versus year ago. The 91.1 million barrels per day includes crude oil and oil like liquids (natural gas liquids, ethanol etc…). The EIA is showing a new peak in world crude oil production in January 2012 at 75.67 million barrels per day.

3. Canada is tracking to 6.2 million barrels per day in 2030 and one natural gas field will double natural gas production.

4. The Bazhenov Formation (Tithonian to Berriasian) occupies about 1 million square km in the central part of the West Siberian plate and is buried by 2,000 to 3,000 meters of younger sediments. The aggregate mass of organic matter in the Bazhenov Formation is as high as 18 trillion tons (126 trillion barrels of oil equivalent).

5. Iraq produces around three million barrels a day, and few analysts believe it can reach its goal of 10 million barrels a day by 2017, a target Baghdad recently reduced from a previous estimate of 12 million barrels a day by that year. But Hans Nijkamp, Royal Dutch Shell’s Iraq country chairman, estimates that Iraq could produce 6 million to 10 million barrels a day by early next decade, “which is really substantial.”

6. Improved fracking technology

7. Continental resources – A leader in prognosticating Bakken oil reserves — said it now believes there is as much as 27 billion to 45 billion barrels of oil recoverable from the Bakken based on production from two previously untapped bench zones in the resource. Whiting’s chief executive officer, Jim Volker, said his company is going there, too, by developing a new field between Dickinson and Belfield called the “Pronghorn area,” in the Pronghorn sands.

8. North Dakota could sustain 2 million barrels per day for several years

9. There are projections for Texas oil production to get over 2 million barrels per day (based on the Texas railway commission definitions). The Texas commissioner in charge of their oil industry is saying that 4 million barrels per day of oil production in Texas is feasible by 2016. I could paint a scenario for you where we are producing 3 million more barrels per day by 2016, which would almost get us to the point where we could eliminate 60 to 70 percent of our OPEC imports,” said Texas Railroad Commissioner Barry Smitherman.

10. Assigning estimated barrels of oil to various basins and shale oil plays plus including an estimate of yet to be discovered shale oil, I came to an estimate of oil in place. Oil in place in the continental US is from about 3 trillion to 5 trillion barrels of oil not including the 4.5 trillion barrels of oil shale.

1.53 trillion barrels Piceance Basin of Colorado (USGS, June 2011 oil shale)
1.44 trillion barrels Green River formation (USGS, June 2011 oil shale)
1.32 trillion barrels for the Uinta Basin of Utah and Colorado. (USGS, June 2011 oil shale)
260-500 billion barrels Monterey Formation (tight oil)
271-503 billion barrels Bakken Formation (tight oil)
etc…

Aggressive use of new fracking technology and combined with fire flooding and water flooding could enable 20-30% recovery rates. Large amounts of the Oil shale is likely recoverable with fire flooding. So 6.5 trillion to 9.5 trillion barrels of oil, with 20-30% recovery rates is 1.3 to 2.8 trillion barrels of oil. Oil Shale like in the Green River Formation cannot be recovered with horizontal drilling. It will require fire flooding or some other likely insitu method.

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