On Wed, 15 Jul 2009 05:55:03 -0500, thunder
wrote:

On Tue, 14 Jul 2009 20:22:35 -0400, Wizard of Woodstock wrote:

more oil than the entire Persian Gulf combined.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1

This has been speculated about for years, but it's finally coming
together.

Oddly, there is a similar field off the coast of New Jersey at about the
same depth but it hasn't been explored.

Interesting.

You know, Tom, production has never been our problem. IIRC, we are still
the third largest petroleum producer. It's our insatiable appetite.
Without addressing that appetite, there won't be any magical production
bullet. This country has been the most prospected country on the
planet. We know where the oil is, it's a matter of recovery. Hell, that
Bakken Formation was discovered in the early fifties, but the recovery
technologies (horizontal drilling) is relatively recent. Even now, the
technically recoverable oil from that formation, @ 4 billion barrels,
would only last us about eight months.

Directional drilling has been around since the '40s when Sperry
developed the gyroscope during the war and that technology was applied
to drilling. That technology was improved on in the early '70s with
mud motors (I was actually on the first test bore - Texaco #5 in the
Gulf). The more recent innovation that I'm familiar with is Auto Trek
with the Quantec bits built by Baker/Hughes.

My point is that the field is bigger and more accessible than
previously thought - plus there seems to be a companion field close to
it and the Canadian fields look to have a similar configuration.

If we have the technology and we can access this supply while we build
our "renewable" future and slowly reduce our dependence on fossil
fuels while keeping prices low and buying time to build a more
efficient transmission system (Smart Grid) with more environmentally
friendly energy sources, why not do it?

This rush to IMMEDIATELY stop thinking about our own supplies of
fossil fuels and change to hopefully new sources is silly.