daveberta.ca: more on the bakken formation.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

more on the bakken formation.

Following up on yesterday's post on the Bakken Formation, I'll direct ya'll to a post that Aaron over at Grandinite wrote last month on one of my newly favorite geological formations.

(picture from BakkenOil.com)

2 comments:

Concerned Albertan said...: Its funny how greatly the estimates vary on how much oil is recoverable in the formation.

In the 70s and 80s the USA had lots of subsidies to help develop technology to recover oil from difficult formations like this, so maybe today those efforts are bearing fruit.

Its just like the gas shale in northern BC, you have likely gas in levels close to middle eastern reserves, while recoverable is lucky to be 1-3%.

While it will be interesting to see if any substantial production comes of of Bakken in our lifetimes, it can have two outcomes:

1. Bakken doesn't produce in significant amounts, and alot of money will be wasted

2. The peak oil theorists will be proven wrong once again like they were in the 80s, where rising prices created an oil glut by making more oil economic

While finding a bunch more oil outside of the middle east can't but help be good for the economy and international capital flows, I am not sure it will be good for the environment.

Perversely, forcing north american's to get their marginal oil from the oilsands where the damage to the earth is very obvious, is likely in the long run better for the environment than opening up a new source whose damages are spread more evenly over the entire supply chain and are hidden.; Sunday, April 13, 2008 8:25:00 p.m.
Christopher said...: I look at that map and I look at those borders and I think of Daniel Day-Lewis talking about what he's doing with his straw to my milkshake. Bad Daniel Day-Lewis! Bad!; Monday, April 21, 2008 10:35:00 p.m.

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