Thank you all for coming.
book is called 'Crude' as mentioned. It tells a story oil from its birth hundreds millions of years ago through its maturation into deep underground, well as the modern tale crude's abrupt exhumation, the battle control its riches and its on the environment out of it came.
Oil is a natural resource. It's the product of decayed remains of billions of creatures that grabbed sunlight out the air and turned it living tissue. Our planet has somewhere around 2 trillion barrels oil, that is 84 trillion of oil in an elaborate of events, taking place over of years, enlisting the carcasses billions of creatures, the rising falling of ancient seas and shifting of tons of rock.
molecules are hydrocarbons which simply that they are made up hydrogen and carbon. Hydrocarbons have very useful quality, that is repel water. Living creatures such single-celled plankton floating on the encase the walls of their with hydrocarbon molecules. This is one thing that separates their insides from their watery environment, 's that line between animate and . When the corpses of these pile-up on the sea floor slowly get buried the water squeezed-out and what remains is the hydrocarbons from cell-walls and is the stuff that can into oil.
Two-thirds of the world's comes from the buried creatures of a single ancient called the Tepes. It was warm shallow sea that washed above the equator about 180 years ago. For more than million years abandoned shells, plankton other organic sediments rained gently the Tepes seabed. The layers organic sediment sank as more more stuff built up on of them, the weight compressed into rock. As the rocky descended deeper into the Earth's they were gently heated and organic material imbued in the matured into a greasy liquid, essence of ancient life, oil. oil stuck in those rocky is impossible to mine. H,owever millions of years, as the earth's shifts, the oil starts to underground, sometimes as far as of miles. It twists and through the tiny tunnels in rocks that smother it. If makes it to the surface will evaporate. If it descends underground it will crack under pressure and heat into hydrocarbon , that is natural gas. If the migrating oils encounter a kind of rock, one with of interconnected pores to hold oil that rock will suck up like a sponge. That soaked rock is called a rock, if a dense layer rock moves over this reservoir the oil will stay put, will be trapped, and those traps are what petroleum geologists oil companies spend their time for.
Around 15 million years the sea-floor under the Tepes consumed into the Earth and sediments were scraped-up onto the . The continents of Arabia and that once lined the Tepes collided and so now the oil was trapped and most it was in what would to be known as the East.
Newly evolved humans walked of the ancestral Africa using land-bridge formed by the crash Arabia and Asia and settled the fertile valley between the and Euphrates rivers. It wasn't before we found the remains that ancient sea as its were slowly oozing to the . People gathered the strange divining the future from the shapes would make when thrown into . They gummed it onto their and houses to create watertight . The Mesopotamians dug up over thousand kilos of petroleum sludge and Persians filled pots with crude with sulphur which they set-a-fire hurled at their enemies. The of natural gas that escaped of the crust along with pools of oil would spontaneously inspiring the fire worshiping religion Zoroastrianism which was the official of Persia for over 4 years.
Oil extraction in the sense began in earnest in , when a former railroad conductor a hole on a farm Pennsylvania near where oil had spotted seeping out of the . At 59 feet the hole incredibly to fill with dark . By 1862 entrepreneurial oil-drillers were up 3 million barrels of oil every year and within years the better part of state's oil was gone.
Hydrocarbons incredibly volatile: the bonds between carbon and the hydrogen atoms make up the molecule are strong so when they're ripped when they're set alight they an explosive amount of energy. the amount of energy stored a single gallon of oil equal to the amount in kilos of the best coal more than 10 kilos of or more than 50 human toiling the entire day away. fact the best oil is energy rich that it can 100 times more energy than extraction requires. The crude oil it comes out of the is a messy mix of kinds of hydrocarbon molecules all which burn at different temperatures. distilling the stuff, certain fractions be reliability produced and their energy can be reliability harnessed. in the late 19th century one fraction of crude was useful and that was kerosene for lighting. The entrepreneur John . Rockefeller built his fortune on market for kerosene but then 1879 Thomas Edison invented the light bulb and in a demand for kerosene and thus as well collapsed and yet 's Standard Oil Company had already on to the oil fields Ohio and Indiana by then. company was swimming in oil, new market had to be and fast.
However cars were popular when they first arrived the scene less than a later. Here's what the New Times had to say in , quote, there's something uncanny about new fangled vehicles, they're unutterably and never one of them been provided with a good even an endurable name. The were usually orthodox in their have evolved automobile which being Greek and half Latin is near indecent that we print with hesitation, unquote. But not were cars ugly and indecent were inefficient compared to the and bicycles used in that . Even todays cars require 3 more energy than trains and times more energy than , than bicycles, excuse me, transport people a given distance. where would they be used they first came on the , roads for the cars to driven on where they existed all were mostly rutted and . However unlike coal powered trains people powered bicycles the car oil and only oil to . Within a decade of the of the internal combustion engine sales had surpassed kerosene sales. the following decades oil and companies would buy out and dismantle popular electric-trolley system forcing consumers opt for diesel burning busses cars instead. They successfully lobbied government to build a massive of smooth roads and highways gasoline burning automobiles to ramble . By 1955 Americans owned 50 cars, 20 years later they twice that number. Investors abandoned -paths they had planned to construct as one linking Pasadena to Angles, half built. The vast of oil needed to run nations cars and trucks created gigantic river of crude byproducts industry scientists fashioned into -chemicals and fertilizers that would find way into every nook and of society. Our closets full petro-polyester clothes, our medicine cabinets with petro-plastic bottles of petro-chemical drugs, our refrigerators full of -fertilized foods brought to us on burning trucks and now we hooked for good, consuming crude 100 thousand times faster than could possibly accumulate again.
During of the first century of consumption, though, western oil companies the crude cheaply from its abundant reservoirs in the Middle , Russia and Mexico. By 1960 the formation of OPEC, though, companies would soon be exiled all of these countries shorn access to more than half the worlds oil and the majority of it that lies the easy to find and to produce areas. However by western leaders understood oil as to the economy and to own military prowess. If in War I the Allies had , floated to victory upon a of oil, unquote, as one had famously put it, by 1990s oil would become so to military might the US were mostly made of oil. no less than 70% of entire weight of all the , vehicles and weapons of the Army is pure fuel. And having been shut out of oil's prolific reservoirs in the Middle , western oil companies, many of were the progeny of Rockefeller's Oil Company, stepped up their for oil in its more corners under the protective wing US and British officials. They for instance in Alaska where ground was permanently frozen down 2 thousand feet and in North Sea a sea so that one of its storms vanquished an entire invading armada in 1588. When some 20 billions barrels of oil were in these regions the technology pry the crude out barely but with higher oil prices panic on dependence on foreign and aggressive government subsidies in wake of the 1970s oil . A whole new generation of was successfully forged in order extract North Sea and Alaskan .
During the 1980s the oil profusely and American oil consumption unhindered. The price of oil below the price of bottled but it wasn't long before flow of oil from these new oil patches had also near the end of the . Leaving behind a 10 billion tab needed to rehabilitate the slope of Alaska and 300 million gallons of toxic sludge the bottom of the North along with dozens of rickety rigs, oil companies were forced again to renew their hunt more oil. But finding oil like picking up a piece shattered glass. First you pickup biggest pieces and then you on your hands and knees sweep up the shards. In of global oil supply the 's hunt for oil is for diminishing returns. The stream of from industries discoveries after 1970 less than ⅓ of the powering humans and their machines , most of it from oil that will peak and deplete and in some cases oil have even ended up burning even fuel, digging and pumping from buried oil fields than those after wells themselves can provide return. And yet this inherently activity makes financial sense for companies. After all, an oil can wow its investors with find of 5 hundred million of oil or less. Although a quantity of oil is to slake todays thirst of for about a week at at a market price of 20 dollars a barrel, such find is a 10 billion asset. And so the western industry exploits the most expensive cutting edge technologies it can in order to find new in its hidden corners. Armed new technologies such as three seismic surveys in which supercomputers used to map echoes into dimensional models of the underworld. explorers were able to pinpoint new oil and gas fields over 5 hundred million barrels during the course of the . But getting the oil out these smaller more hidden oil is another giant technological challenge. than half of the oil of the 1990s lie not the familiar arid plains nor under Arctic tundra but deep the sea floors' shifting sediments. the deep waters of the of Guinea off the coast West Africa and the Gulf Mexico among other regions. But companies are well practiced at more resources to get less, in some of the most environments in the world. In 1990s for instance oil exploitation commenced off the Grand Banks, series of banks that rise the continental shelf about 180 off the coast of New in Canada. In 1979 after 50 dry holes Mobil had oil off the banks in field they dubbed Hibernia. This was under serious guard, over thousand icebergs drift around Hibernia year and underwater current slam those icebergs into a even if the wind is in the opposite direction. This where the Titanic had been after all not long back 1912. In 1982 Mobil's 15 ton colossal of a rig sank in a storm over but undeterred the company spent billion dollars building a new requiring the labor of over thousand workers toiling on 3 for over 6 years. A metropolis of drilling derricks, lifeboat , holly decks and living quarters built atop a giant base 4 hundred thousand tons of and 69 thousand tons of . The resulting mammoth weighting more 5 aircraft carriers was submerged the floor of the icy using more than 400 thousand of iron-ore to do it. today supply ships ring the shooting water-cannons at the looming and all of this for than point 1% of the of oil secreted under the East where oil executives say oil is as difficult as a straw in the ground.
oil industry latest finds in Africa's Gulf of Guinea and Gulf of Mexico are not smaller then these earlier , but extremely remote, well away the usual complex of underwater , refineries and oil terminals needed extract, transport and process oil. some cases the oil is deeply buried that the pipes it to the surface can -up with icy hydrates and nor it feasible to spend years billions of dollars building rigs extract oil from such oil , the water is too deep the pools of oil too . And so with help from and engineers at universities such Texas A&M and The University Texas the industry has developed new way to extract oil, for the exploitation of small and deep water oil fields, 's called the FPSO which stands floating production storage and offloading . Not a very creative name. are basically refurbished oil tankers, 're equipped to get the oil , process it, store it and it off onto tankers all a single vessel floating on top of the surface. Instead building giant concrete and steel , installing them over oil fields them up to a maze pipelines, a single ship can simply floated into place, suck the oil and then move to the next field. This oil extraction by stealth and is rapid as well. Generally oil industry takes about 10 from when they pinpoint new to when they start drilling out, with FPSOs they can that time lag by a of 6 but FPSOs also new environment threats. They rely on oil tankers and other to carry their oil rather underwater pipelines. Although pipelines are safer and less likely to oil and this is part the reason why US regulators FPSOs from the Gulf of until 2002. Potentially more significant the quantifiable risk of oil though are the unknown risks by FPSOs drilling in deep . According to government regulators the ocean is quote, so poorly that little more than conjecture the possible impacts are possible.
in the earths crust is unlike blood in our own . If a body is pierced a thousand holes the blood gush out to begin with, and when about half of the has been spent the flow slow to a lazy dribble that point when about half the world's conventional oil supply has spent now approaches us. According industry analysts the flow of and gas from the earths will decline at a rate about 3 to 5% a .
Meanwhile our global desire for will only increase, marching ever at a rate of about % a year. While oil executives government officials often paint this increasing demand as the inenviable of human progress and development, is also the result of of hard work on the of the oil and auto advertising the joys of the -life in order to maintain strong for their products. In 1990 instance the American automobile market technically saturated, the average American owned one car for each its licensed drivers. Gone of was the family pleasure drives the 1950s, by 2001 American spent more time in their then with their own children. all the extra driving isn't getting us any farther, between and 2001 Americans spent 10% more in their cars but traveled same number of miles. The the liberation of cars spreads more often we find ourselves by congestion. Car and truck and fumes derived respiratory illnesses more than 70 thousand Americans year, but enough is not . In the 1980s automakers started larger cars such a light and SUVs that use more instead and Americans continued to more vehicles with a new rolling into driveways every 3 , a rate almost 3 times than the rate at which babies appeared. Nevertheless true growth will have to be found . Compared to the average American uses about 3 gallons of per day the average Chinese consumes point one-five gallons a . Insuring that developing countries such China and India consume increasing of oil is quote, crucial the long term growth of markets, unquote as the Department Energy has acknowledged.
International financial have lent a helping hand out over 50 billion dollars developing countries to embark on fuel projects between 1992 and . In 2001 the World Trade accepted China's membership but only the condition that they agree slash their tariffs on car from over 80% to 25% less by 2006. By the 2000, automakers were spending almost billion dollars advertising their cars the United States with billions in China alone. Quote, the leading automakers and part suppliers reached a consensus, a recent journal noted, that China is most important place to be, . Car sales in China are leaping forward by over 60% year and by 2020 developing led by China and India expected to consume almost 90% much oil as industrialized ones.
companies and automakers say that of this extra oil consumption bring prosperity to the Asian . This of course remains to seen, what can be seen is slum ridden mega-cities such Calcutta, Beijing and Jakarta paving their well-trod foot paths and allies for cars driven by elites and the gigantic cloud smog the so-called Asian brown stretching thousands of miles over skies of Asia, blocking out much as 10% of India's . And so today the question , will the industry be able provide enough oil for all this engineered demand? Many commentators that we are entering a of crisis, one that could so drastic that it will the American way of life we know it. As the of oil peters-out while demand there will be increasingly bloody for the remaining reserves of fuels. The price of energy skyrocket, radically disrupting the lives ordinary Americans whose way of , driving from office to mall home, relies upon cheap gasoline yet the oil industry and leaders have already laid plans minimize such disruptions albeit at greater costs for distant people under-protected ecosystems. After all we've running out of oil since very beginning of the oil and have known for decades whatever the pace of flow the tap the tank will be refilled, at least not homo-sapiens walk this earth.
Government have contrived to pry open inaccessible oil territories from Iraq Libya, neither which have been to modern exploration methods. In oil companies plan to renew search for new oil mostly the poorer countries of the . They're developing technology that will them to squeeze crude out regions not previously considered oil and they're attempting to switch from oil to its neglected natural gas' which while also finite resource is relatively more compared to oil. Each chapter proof burdensome to the environment human communities in different ways.
the next 2 decades the oil industry plans to spend biggest chunk of its exploration searching for crude, not in , Texas and Norway, but in countries. Such operations can be expected to render small amounts oil with large effects on people. The business of oil in countries as diverse as , Congo, Ecuador, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, , Libya, Peru, Qatar, Saudi Arabia Trinidad Tobago have coincided not an increase in prosperity but a sharp downward slide in standards and an increase in corruption conflict. In Iraq, Nigeria and the piles of corpses ringing oils stomping grounds can perhaps for themselves.
Transforming what used be unusable unconventional fossil fuel into exploitable oil will become common as well, using technology government subsidies. The example of -sands in Alberta, Canada is illustrative the process. A huge stretch sludge called tar-sands stretches across , Canada. Back in the 1960s technology to mine oil from -sands like the technology to extract from the Alaskan tundra didn't . These resources were therefore untouchable over the years the technology improved, the price of oil gone up and the Canadian has offered generous subsides. So the price of extracting a of oil from tar-sands has from around 30 dollars in 1980s to around 5 to dollars today and in 2003 Department of Energy redefined no than 180 billion barrels of -sands as quote, conventional oil, increasing assessment of the global supply oil by a whopping 15%. Canada leapfrogged over Iraq to the country with the second oil reserves in the world. trouble is mining oil from -sands burns up to a fifth of 's natural gas and emits no than 6 times more carbon-dioxide producing a barrel of conventional , requires 6 times more fresh-water the oil it renders and behind vast lakes of waste . The acid rain from todays -sands operations alone could destroy Alberta's and this could go on decades. Experts say there's 2.3 barrels of oil locked in -sands, that is more oil than all the worlds conventional reserves. 2030 Canadian officials expect tar-sands to sate no less than % of the US's ravenous oil . New technology allowing companies to more oil out of reservoir can also render some new of oil, at best only of the oil in reservoir is ever extracted from the . Once the initial pressure is , drillers use secondary recovery techniques as shooting water, carbon-dioxide, natural and other chemicals into the to force more oil out. the oil-globules within the rock upon themselves and refuse to . As you can imagine, much and effort is spent figuring how to extract that second of the oil and even minor breakthrough in this area release mother-loads of new oil the industry to sell.
Shifting from oil to natural gas another leading strategy underway for oil companies. All the big companies are actually oil and companies and for many gas are growing while oil reserves falling. Shell's CEO recently announced hope that demand for gas -shine demand for oil by 2025 the current era a quote, window of opportunity, unquote, for companies to shift customers from fossil fuel to the other.
John Kerry and George W. favor the construction of yet lengthly pipeline across the Alaskan this time to deliver natural . Endlessly mouthing the industries mantra natural gas is a clean friendly fuel. And yet methane natural gas is a much dangerous net greenhouse-gas than carbon-dioxide. about 2.3% of the natural produced by the industry leaks of the valves pipelines and infrastructure meant to encase it floats up into the atmosphere . If that proportion makes it to about 3% using natural is no better for the than burning oil. Supplying consumers more gas will also require wasteful practices such as natural liquefaction, that is burning more in order to cool the to negative 260 degrees fahrenheit which point it becomes liquid thus easier to transport.
Keeping gas pipelines full will also its pounds of flesh just effectively as oil has. In the Texas gas industry for had to drill 4 thousand wells in order to keep gas production steady. The following they had to drill 64 new wells in order to the same. All the largest reserves of gas are therefore close to home but rather situated under conflict ridden densely countries such as Nigeria, Angola, and Indonesia.
The coming crisis oil supply will in other be costly and destructive, the is who's going to pay price? Giant oil companies and makers or African villagers and Arctic wilderness. After all the resource consumption of western society always exacted a cost in lives and ecosystems. Before Shell other companies started pumping oil Nigeria western traders extracted Nigerian and palm-oil. Before Occidental started oil from Colombia western companies annexed great swabs of the for bananas and coffee for consumers.
In order to pursue energy security we must do than cut our dependence on oil or use energy more by buying the fuel SUVs cynically marketed by automakers. Energy while a noble goal that must go forward with does by itself restrain consumption as analysts have know for over hundred years. As long as efficient technology drives the price consumption down, it stimulates more not less. More fuel efficient for example have in the led Americans to step-up their driving. More efficient refrigeration technology led to bigger refrigerators.
Instead must challenge the oil industry by cutting our consumption all by altering the very way live so we don't need burn a gallon of oil driving our cars nor eat that has required another gallons worth of fertilizers, plastic wrapping truck transport. If we can to do that perhaps a era of sporadic supply interruptions volatile prices coupled with an of better technology to harness , wind and other renewable energies start to slowly persuade people to opt for oil. Environmental human rights concerns might restrain quest for new oil and in some regions. Perhaps in-other-words might be enough oil left mine aluminum and silicon for mills and solar panels before drills, shovels and clouds of -dioxide poison the planet for good.
signs I think are mixed, Detroit hundreds of people are the former capital of the , coating it with acres of food growing gardens while in officials have announced their intentions step-up tar-sands production. In Iraq Libya, Texas oil men are in the queues to re-enter old stomping ground while in aging oil executives are handed -billion dollar checks to upgrade their tankers and pipelines. In Alaska company trucks are sinking in permafrost melting mud while in oil executives are pressing for more access to protected lands. the city of London people now penalized for driving their . While in Beijing bicyclists are their noses against the sparkling of GM's new auto show-rooms.
simple truth is that when oil is gone, for us will be gone forever, can't wait another 100 million years more crude but whatever happens our hydrocarbon based society under-floats powerful black liquid will likely again and perhaps more than before the sun burns out 7 billion years. Whether the beings traversing the surface of planet at that time are descendents or not is up us.
Thank you.

From: http://www.globalpublicmedia.com