One of the front page articles of the New York Times today was entitled, "Oil Innovations Pump New Life into Old Wells." (What a bad headline for a good article...) I suggest you all skim through the article, which is available at:
The article gets at a controversy which environmentalists, economists and others have been debating for years. It goes like this: environmentalists argue that oil supplies are running out, and that oil has already peaked. This is a scary claim, because if it is true, then due to the laws of supply and demand, the price of oil will peak and our society will have to scramble to find new sources of energy. Some environmentalists claim that this has already happened. However, many conservative economists, such as those at the CATO institute, claim instead that oil reserves have been, and still are increasing. How can this be? Intuitively, it seems certain that there are only a certain number of barrels of oil available on earth, since it takes billions of years to make oil "from scratch." However, what these economists mean is that because human technology has advanced, and continues to advance at an enormous rate, every year more oil reserves become available. This article supports the latter position. Recently, oil companies such as Exxon and Chevron have developed new technologies which allow them to drastically up the production of old oil wells. With this new technology, oil fields which were previously discounted as "dried up" are now being rejuvenated. There is therefore more oil available today than there was 50 years ago.
Understandably, some environmentalists hate this type of reasoning, and fear that if oil supplies are seen as unlimited, that global warming will once again fade from public consciousness. However, in reality such news is heartening. The ability of humanity to advance technologically is hopeful - and it is my opinion that renewable energy is not advanced enough to power our world, should oil run out. Of course, this does not mean that global warming is not incredibly important. However, it might be wise to focus environmental campaigns around messages regarding national security (it is unsafe to rely on oil imports from hostile and unstable countries) and the dangers of global warming itself (coastal flooding, drought in the midwest, the extinction of species, melting of the ice cap, ect.) From a career perspective, this also means that it may be a smart choice to pursue a career in the oil and gas industry, especially if you are someone with creative engineering skills and a steady hand. The industry is often subject to oil reserve scares, and additionally is constantly in need of new technology.
Okay, I am going to go get a chocolately snack before my next class.
Emily
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