That's the high estimate, the low is less than 3 billion. Most of the play is untested because of the extreme costs involved with getting to this oil. It is deep oil under very deep water off the continental shelf where rigs are not practical. Drill ships have to be used. There have been a couple of successful plays out there but the costs of dry holes can run $100 million each and 4 dry holes were drilled before they hit a good one. They must deal with hurricanes, seismically dense salt layers, low-porosity and low-permeability reservoirs, and high-pressure/high-temperature downhole conditions with high risk of catastrophic blowouts like we have recent experienced with BP. Oil will have to get up way past $100 a barrel to make this profitable, even if the technological hurdles can be overcome. Peak Oil was never a "head-on collision" of running out of oil. It was simply the high point of the curve after which declining production will be the norm. That is still the case. New technology has extended the decline, but it has not been reversed. Oil is being rapidly depleted and we will run out. Long before it runs out it will become unaffordable for most nations, corporations, and individuals. How exactly have "chicken littles" been exploiting this? Everybody is pumping all that they can with little regard to preserving reserves for the future. The problem is people that expect our fossil fuel economy can go on forever. When the oil is gone, life as we know it will change radically. At least as much effort that goes into to finding every last drop of recoverable oil should be applied to making plans for life without affordable oil.
I know Red gets under some of you guys skin, a lot, but he is 100% correct on this. IMHO, the answer is to shift every possible energy use to alt energy, keeping oil for mobility, where at this time, there is just no real good alternative.
This is where martin would remind us that anthropogenic global warming in the long run will be self-correcting because first the oil, then the gas, then the coal will be depleted greatly reducing carbon output. Or . . . humans will become extinct in a polluted desert and carbon output will become nil. He would say we might as well just burn it while we can and accept fate. I would say we should have our cake and eat it, too. We must greatly reduce fossil fuel use to protect our habitat while at the same time extending the time we have it to use fuel at all. We might just live long enough for the technological advances of the future to happen.
They are high pressure at 19,000-22,000+psi, but not nearly high temp. (250-280F) for the oilfield. (Mobile Bay has much hotter wells than that). The technology hurdles in drilling and completing a well at those pressures and water depths (10,000ft - drilled by both Drill Ships and Semi-submersibles.) have long been overcome. Shell Perdido, Petrobras Cascade/Chinook, and now Chevron Jack/St. Malo wells are all producing multiple wells. And the majors must like what they see as they have on going (Chevron Jack, Shell Stones, Exxon Julia, Petrobras Chinook) and are planning many other major projects. And Macondo was tragic, but it wasn't a lower tertiary, it was a middle miocene drilled in 5000ft. One those super producing high perm turbidite reservoirs. The lower teritary is low perm but it's an ocean of oil.
I had a job one summer when I was in school working for a guy who owned a tree service. It was hot dirty work in the heat of summer but the boss had a policy that when the temperature got to 95 or above he would buy the beer after work. He called it a Thermobonus.
Pricey oil, though. Saudi Arabia is pumping 11 million barrels a day very cheaply from shallow reservoirs. They are still pumping like mad despite the glut. Why? To put pressure on competition from fracking shale plays and deepwater plays. It costs a lot to frack shale or drill in deep water and companies can't make the profits they need to do that very long at $52 a barrel. Deepwater up front costs are phenomenal, as much as $8 billion, with $180 million a year operating costs. But they produce higher output for a much longer time than shale plays. Companies are counting on oil going back up. That is the problem with all of the 'new" reservoirs, oil will have to get a lot more expensive before they can be fully exploited.
I'm not talking about filling your tank with hydrogen. I'm talking about filling your tank with water. A fuel pump would deliver the water to a device that would convert small amounts of hydrogen and oxygen as needed and feed it into your engine much the same as a carburetor or fuel injection already do. All we need to do is to figure out a more efficient method to do the electrolysis. I wouldn't be surprised if somebody had already done it and been bought off by the oil companies to keep it off the market.
Just fill your tank with water. Sure, Hoss. All we need to do is make a chemical plant small enough to fit in a car, a tiny chemist to operate it, overrule the laws of thermodynamics, and pray for a miracle. I wouldn't be surprised if Ronco sold you a kit for $19.95 that allows you to do this. What you imagine is still sci-fi. Hydrogen synthesis takes more electricity to accomplish than it can generate from the hydrogen! And it costs more money to do it than it saves.
You would be the guy who scoffed at Thomas Edison and told him your reasons why the light bulb would never work. It won't happen unless money and research are put into it but it could happen. The first computer I ever saw filled a large room. Now I have way more computing power in my phone. Somebody like Elon Musk could do it. But he won't. He has too much invested in battery technology to make it feasible for more people to buy a Tesla. But sooner or later some enterprising genius will do it and become a multi billionaire. When you say "a chemical plant small enough to fit in a car" you are thinking of chemical plants that could produce enough hydrogen to fill thousands of zeppelins. A small device could eventually be made to produce very small amounts on demand as we mash on the accelerator or let of the gas. At first they would be too expensive for the average consumer but as the technology matured and with mass production the price would fall. How much did you pay for your first Texas Instrument calculator? For your first cell phone if your provider didn't give it to you for signing a contract?
I watched a kid on the science channel yesterday fuse hydrogen atoms together in his garage, that's right, nuclear fusion in his garage, in a tube that would fit easily into any car. I mean come on, this kid just built the freaking Sun, in his play room. It can be done.
