ENERGY IDEAS FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER

Energy ideas from one generation to another
Lindsey Snyder, May 17, 2009 (NewEnergyNews)

This essay comes from Lindsey Snyder, Assistant Editor at trade periodicals Gear Technology and Power Transmission Engineering and a first-time contributor to NewEnergyNews.

My dad enjoys sharing what I often refer to as “liberal propaganda” with me. I like arguing about politics with him.

But this week, he sent me an email from a conservative friend of his. It was the first he had heard about the oil reserves found in the Bakken Formation, spanning parts of Montana, North Dakota and Saskatchewan, Canada. According to this mass email his friend forwarded on, the area is potentially capable of producing enough oil to eliminate American dependence on foreign reserves—a pretty lofty claim.

My father, liberal-viewed and sensitive to environmental concerns, found himself teetering on the fence of this subject; he asked for my take.

Now, aside from asserting environmentalists are in bed with OPEC, the email also claims some shoddy stats I couldn’t turn up any support for. 503 billion barrels, two trillion barrels—that’s a pretty big discrepancy. 500 times as much oil as Yemen, and enough to fuel the American economy for 41 years are other assertions.

Map from The Oil Drum. (click thru for full text)

The email refers to an April 2008 report issued by the U.S. Geological Service. The report estimated a total mean resource of 3.65 billion barrels of oil. The report notes a range in estimates of the oil, which it attributes to “significant geologic uncertainty.”

The email was timely, considering how Senate Republicans blocked the appointment of David J. Hayes to Deputy Interior Secretary this past Wednesday. According to the Washington Post and other reports, Republicans weren’t opposed to Hayes and his qualifications, but they were instead making a statement in response to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s cancellation of oil and gas leases in Utah earlier this year.

My ears are ringing with echoes of “Drill, baby, drill.” We can’t allow bitter, petty partisanship to sabotage our future.

Bottom line: Bakken could supply 0.4% of U.S. oil consumption or 0.6% of U.S. oil imports over 20 years. Graph and data from The Oil Drum. (click thru for full text)

I don’t take issue with the fact that we rely heavily on oil; although, I can’t help consider factors like cost, war and the environment. But more importantly to me, the murmur of last summer’s antiquated mantra is drowned out by the buzz being generated (pardon the pun) by alternative energy development. Just to clarify, the buzz isn’t about oil.

For the first time, I found myself saying, “Dad, join the 21st century!”

Or in the words of an icon of his generation, “Your old road is rapidly aging, please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand, for the times they are a-changin’.”

From panicxitsxbrea via YouTube.

Oil is the energy of the 19th and 20th centuries. That’s a pretty long time for an industry (energy) to lack innovation and progress.

So the Bakken Formation may be able to supply our energy for half a human lifetime, according to a conservatively partisan, unofficial, unverifiable email. So what? What about all the scientific innovation that could occur in those 41 years? Especially if we actually devote ourselves to developing energy in every way shape and form possible. And there are some crazy forms of energy being pursued, like algae grown in wastewater.

The point is that the U.S. should be jumping for joy over the opportunity to develop new solutions to the world’s energy predicament. Why are we looking back a century-and-a-half when there are new technologies right in front of us that we can invest in today? They’re there waiting for us to reach out and grab—or at least discover how to grab.

click to enlarge

It may seem impossibly difficult to wean us off oil. We’re the junkie licking up every last drop. But what if we just stopped complaining and committed ourselves to the challenge? This is a challenge with the potential to yield incredibly rewarding benefits economically, socially and environmentally. I can’t imagine there’s anyone who disagrees that living in a world not depending on foreign or domestic oil while protecting our environment sounds pretty sweet. Utopian even.

Maybe this our destiny. People of all ages are embracing the concept of clean, alternative energy and energy independence. I’m not saying we should stop oil production. But I do think we can expend ourselves developing new technology—instead of clinging to the old—to help us move closer to this goal. Although there is obvious disagreement over how energy independence can be achieved, standing in the way of scientific innovation in preference to the age-old, resource depleting status quo is not a viable solution or sound strategy. I’m no fortuneteller, but this can’t be what the 21st century is about.